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THE 



OLD EEGIME 



THE REVOLUTION. 



ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. 

OF THE ACAD^MIE FEANgAISE, 
AUTHOE OP "DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA." 



TRANSLATED 



BY JOHN BONNER, 



NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FEANKLIN SQUARE. 

1856. 




". . ,, /7 j^ X. / /. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty-six, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 









rW 



CONTENTS. 



Preface Page 1 

BOOK I. 
CHAPTEE I. 

Contradictory Opinions formed upon the Revolution when it broke 
out 13 

CHAPTER n. 

that the fundamental and final Object of the Revolution was not, 
us some have supposed, to destroy religious and to weaken polit- 
ical Authority 18 

CHAPTER ni. 

That the French Revolution, though political, pursued the same 
Course as a religious Revolution, and why 24 

CHAPTER IV. 

How the same Institutions had been established over nearly all Eu- 
rope, and were every where falling to pieces 29 

CHAPTER V. 
What did the French Revolution really achieve ? 35 



BOOK II. 
CHAPTER I. 
Why the feudal Rights were more odious to the People in France 
than any where else 38 

CHAPTER n. 
That we owe "Administrative Centralization," not to the Revolution 
or the Empire, as some say, but to the old Regime 50 

5 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER m. 

That what is now called "the Guardianship of the State" {Tutelle 
Administrative) was an Institution of the old Regime Page 61 

CHAPTER IV. 

That administrative Tribunals Qa Justice Administrative) and official 
Irresponsibility (Garantie des Functionnaires) were Institutions of 
the old Regime 73 

CHAPTER V. 

How Centralization crept in among the old Authorities, and sup- 
planted without destroying them 79 

CHAPTER VI. 
Of official Manners and Customs under the old Regime 93 

CHAPTER VII. 
How the Capital of France had acquired more Preponderance over 
the Provinces, and usurped more Control over the Nation, than 
any other Capital in Europe 95 

CHAPTER Vni. 

That Frenchmen had grown more like each other than any other 
People 101 

CHAPTER IX. 

That these Men, who were so alike, were more divided than they 
had ever been into petty Groups, each independent of and indif- 
ferent to the others 106 

CHAPTER X. 

How the Destruction of political Liberty and Class Divisions were 
the Causes of all the Diseases of which the old Regime died. 124 

CHAPTER XI. 

Of the kind of Liberty enjoyed under the old Regime, and of its In- 
fluence upon the Revolution 137 

CHAPTER XII. 

y How the Condition of the French Peasantry was worse in some re- 
spects in the Eighteenth Century than it had been in the Thir- 
teenth, notwithstanding the Progress of Civilization 151 

6 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

How, toward the middle of the Eighteenth Century, literary Men 
became the leading Politicians of the Country, and of the Effects 
thereof Page 170 

CHAPTER XIV. 

How Irreligion became a general ruling Passion among Frenchmen 
in the Eighteenth Century, and of the Influence it exercised over 
the Character of the Revolution 182 

CHAPTER XV. 
How the French sought Reforms before Liberties 192 

CHAPTER XVI. 

That the Reign of Louis XVI. was the most prosperous Era of the 
old Monarchy, and how that Prosperity really hastened the Revo- 
lution 206 

CHAPTER XVn. 
How Attempts to relieve the People provoked Rebellion 218 

CHAPTER XVm. 

Of certain Practices by means of which the Government completed 
the revolutionary Education of the People 228 

CHAPTER XIX. 

How great administrative Changes had preceded the political Revo- 
lution, and of the Consequences thereof 234 

CHAPTER XX. 

How the Revolution sprang spontaneously out of the preceding 
Facts 246 

Appendix 257 

Notes 271-344 

7 



PREFACE, 



The book I now publisli is not ca history of the 
Eevolution. That history has been too brilliantly 
written for me to think of writing it afresh. This is 
a mere essay on the Revolution. 

The French made, in 1789, the greatest eifort that 
has ever been made by any people to sever their his- 
tory into two parts, so to speak, and to tear open a 
gulf between their past and their future. In this de- 
sign, they took the greatest care to leave every trace 
of their past condition behind them ; they imposed all 
kinds of restraints upon themselves in order to be dif- 
ferent from their ancestry ; they omitted nothing which 
could disguise them. 

I have always fancied that they-were less success- 
ful in this enterprise than has been generally believed 
abroad, or even supposed at home. I have always 
suspected that they unconsciously retained most of 
the sentiments, habits, and ideas which the old regime 
had taught them, and by whose aid they achieved the 
Revolution ; and that, without intending it, they used 
its ruins as materials for the construction of their new 
society. Hence it seemed that the proper way of 
studying the Revolution was to forget, for a time, the 
France we see before us, and to examine, in its grave, 
the France that is gone. That is the task which I 



11 PREFACE. 

have here endeavored to perform ; it has been more 
arduous than I had imagined. 

The early ages of the monarchy, the Middle Ages, 
and the period of revival have been thoroughly studied ; 
the labors of the authors who have chosen them for 
their theme have acquainted us not only with the 
events of history, but also with the laws, the customs, 
the spirit of the government and of the nation in those 
days. No one has yet thought of examining the eight- 
eenth century in the same close, careful manner. "We 
fancy that we are familiar with the French society of 
that age because we see clearly what glittered on its 
surface, and possess detailed biographies of the illus- 
trious characters, and ingenious or eloquent criticisms 
on the works of the great writers who flourished at the 
time. But of the manner in which public business was 
transacted, of the real working of institutions, of the 
true relative position of the various classes of society, 
of the condition and feelings of those classes which 
v^ere neither heard nor seen, of the actual opinions and 
customs of the day, we have only confused and fre- 
quently erroneous notions. 

I have undertaken to grope into the heart of this 
old regime. It is not far distant from us in years, but 
the Eevolution hides it. 

To succeed in the task, I have not only read the 
celebrated books which the eighteenth century pro- 
duced; I have studied many works which are compar- 
atively unknown, and deservedly so, but which, as 
their composition betrays but little art, aiford perhaps 
a still truer index to the instincts of the age. I have 
endeavored to make myself acquainted with all the 



PREFACE. m 

public documents in whicli the French expressed their 
opinions and their views at the approach of the E-ev- 
olution. I have derived much information on this 
head from the reports of the States, and, at a later pe- 
riod, from those of the Provincial Assemblies. I have 
freely used the cahiei'S which were presented by the 
three orders in 1789. These cahiers^ whose originals 
form a large series of folio volumes, will ever remain 
as the testament of the old French society, the final 
expression of its wishes, the authentic statement of its 
last will. They are a historical document that is 
unique. 

Nor have I confined my studies to these. In coun- 
tries where the supreme power is predominant, very 
few ideas, or desires, or grievances can exist without 
coming before it in some shape or other. But few in- 
terests can be created or passions aroused that are not 
at some time laid bare before it. Its archives reveal 
not merely its own proceedings, but the movement of 
the whole nation. Free access to the files of the De- 
partment of the Interior and the various prefectures 
would soon enable a foreigner to know more about 
France than we do ourselves. In the eighteenth cen- 
tury, as a perusal of this work will show, the gov- 
ernment was already highly centralized, very power- 
ful, prodigiously active. It was constantly at work 
aiding, prohibiting, permitting this or that. It had 
much to promise, much to give. It exercised para- 
mount influence not only over the transaction of busi- 
ness, but over the prospects of families and the private 
life of individuals. None of its business was made 
public ; hence people did not shrink from confiding to 



IV PEEFACE. » 

it their most secret infirmities. - • I have devoted much 
time to the study of its remains at Paris and in the 
provinces.* 

I have found in them, as I anticipated, the actual 
life of the old regime, its ideas, its passions, its preju- 
dices, its practices. I have found men speaking freely 
their inmost thoughts in their own language. I have 
thus obtained much information upon the old regime 
which was unknown even to the men who lived under 
it, for I had access to seurces which were closed to 
them. 

As I progressed in my labors, I was surprised to 
find in the France of that day many features which are 
conspicuous in the France we have before us. I met 
with a host of feelings and ideas which I have always 
credited to the Revolution, and many habits which it 
is supposed to have engendered ; I found on every side 
the roots of our modern society deeply imbedded in 
the old soil. The nearer I drew to 1789, the more 
distinctly I noticed the spirit which brought about the 
Revolution. The actual physiognomy of the Revolu- 
tion was gradually disclosed before me. Its temper, 
its genius were apparent ; it was all there. I saw 
there not only the secret of its earliest efibrts, but the 
promise also of its ultimate results — for the Revolu- 

* I have made especial use of the archives of some of the greater 
intendants' offices, such as those of Tours, which are very complete ; 
they refer to a very large district (generalite), placed in the centre of 
France, and containing a million of souls. My thanks are due to the 
young and able keeper of the archives, M. Grandmaison. Other in- 
tendants' offices, such as that of lie de France, have satisfied me that 
business was conducted on the same plan throughout most of the 
kino;dom. 



PREFACE. V 

tion had two distinct phases : one during which the 
French seemed to want to destroy everj remnant of 
the past, another during which they tried to regain a 
portion of what they had thrown off. Many of the 
laws and political usages of the old regime which dis- 
appeared in 1789 reappeared some years afterward, 
just as some rivers bury themselves in the earth and 
rise to the surface at a distance, washing new shores 
with the old waters. 

The especial objects of the work I now present to 
the public are to explain why the Revolution, which 
was impending over every European country, burst 
forth in France rather than elsewhere ; why it issued 
spontaneously from the society which it was to de- 
stroy ; and how the old monarchy contrived to fall so 
completely and so suddenly. 

My design is to pursue the work beyond these lim- 
its. I intend, if I have time and my strength does not 
fail me, to follow through the vicissitudes of their long 
revolution thes^ Frenchmen with whom I have lived on 
such famihar terms under the old regime ; to see them 
throwing off the shape they had borrowed from this 
old regime, and assuming new shapes to suit events, 
yet never changing their nature, or wholly disguising 
the old familiar features by changes of expression. 

I shall first go over the period of 1789, when their 
affections were divided between the love of freedom 
and the love of equality ; when they desired to estab- 
lish free as well as democratic institutions, and to ac- 
knowledge and confirm rights as well as to destroy 
privileges. This was an era of youth, of enthusiasm, 
of pride, of generous and heartfelt passions ; despite 



VI PREFACE. 

its errors, men will remember it long, and for many a 
day to come it will disturb the slumbers of those who 
seek to corrupt or to enslave the French. 

In the course of a hasty sketch of the Eevolution, I 
shall endeavor to show what errors, what faults, what 
disappointments led the French to abandon their first 
aim, to forget liberty, and to aspire to become the equal 
servants of the master of the world ; how a far stron- 
ger and more absolute government than the one the 
Revolution overthrew then seized and monopolized all 
political power, suppressed all the liberties which had 
been so dearly bought, and set up in their stead empty 
shams; deprived electors of all means of obtaining in- 
formation, of the right of assemblage, and of the faculty 
of exercising a choice, yet talked of popular sovereign- 
ty ; said the taxes were freely voted, when mute or en- 
slaved assemblies assented to their imposition ; and, 
while stripping the nation of every vestige of self-gov- 
ernment, of constitutional guarantees, and of liberty of 
thought, speech, and the press — that is to say, of the 
most precious and the noblest conquests of 1789 — still 
dared to claim descent from that great era. 

I shall stop at the period at which the work of the 
Eevolution appears complete, and the new society cre- 
ated. I shall then examine that new society. I shall 
try to discover wherein it resembles and wherein it 
differs from the society which preceded it ; to ascertain 
what we have gained and what we have lost by the 
universal earthquake ; and shall lastly attempt to fore- 
see our future prospects. 

A portion of this second work Iliave roughly sketch- 
ed, but it is not yet fit for the public eye. Shall I be 



PREFACE. VU 

permitted to finish it ? Who knows ? The fate of 
individuals is even more obscure than that of na- 
tions. 

I trust I have written this work without prejudice ; 
but I do not claim to have written dispassionately. 
It would he hardly decent for a Frenchman to be calm 
when he speaks of his country, and thinks of the times. 
I admit that, in studying every feature of the society 
of other times, I have never lost sight of that which 
we see before us. I have tried not only to detect the 
disease of which the patient died, but to discover the 
remedy that might have saved him. I have acted like 
those physicians who try to surprise the vital princi- 
ple in each paralyzed organ. My object has been to 
draw a perfectly accurate, and, at the same time, an 
instructive picture. Whenever I have found among 
our ancestors any of those masculine virtues which we 
need so much and possess so little — a true spirit of in- 
dependence, a taste for true greatness, faith in ourselves 
and in our cause — I have brought them boldly forward; 
and, in like manner, whenever I have discovered in the 
laws, or ideas, or manners of olden time, any trace of 
those vices which destroyed the old regime and weak- 
en us to-day, I have taken pains to throw light on 
them, so that the sight of their mischievous effects in 
the past might prove a warning for the future. 

In pursuing this object, I have not, I confess, allowed 
myself to be influenced by fears of wounding either in- 
dividuals or classes, or shocking opinions or recollec- 
tions, however respectable they may be. I have often 
felt regret in pursuing this course, but remorse, never. 
Those whom I may have offended must forgive me, in 



viii PREFACE. 

consideration of the honesty and disinterestedness of 
my aim. 

I may perhaps be charged with evincing in this work 
a most inopportune love for freedom, about which I am 
assured that Frenchmen have ceased to care. 

I can only reply to those who urge this charge that 
in me the feeling is of ancient date. More than twen- 
ty years have elapsed since I wrote, in reference to an- 
other society, almost these very words. 

In the darkness of the future three truths may be 
plainly discerned. The first is, that all the men of our 
day are driven, sometimes slowly, sometimes violently, 
by an unknown force — which may possibly be regu- 
lated or moderated, but can not be overcome — toward 
the destruction of aristocracies. The second is, that, 
among all human societies, those in which there exists 
and can exist no aristocracy are precisely those in 
which it will be most difficult to resist, for any length 
of time, the establishment of despotism. And the third 
is, that despotisms can never be so injurious as in so- 
cieties of this nature; for despotism is the form of gov- 
ernment which is best adapted to facilitate the devel- 
opment of the vices to which these societies are prone, 
and naturally encourages the very propensities that are 
indigenous in their disposition. 

When men are no longer bound together by caste, 
class, corporate or family ties, they are only too prone 
to give their whole thoughts to their private interest, 
and to wrap themselves up in a narrow individuality 
in which public virtue is stifled. Despotism does not 
combat this tendency ; on the contrary, it renders it 
irresistible, for it deprives citizens of all common pas- 



PREFACE. IX 

sions, mutual necessities, need of a common tmderstand- 
ing, opportunity for combined action : it ripens them, 
so to speak, in private life. Tliej had a tendency to 
hold themselves aloof from each other: it isolates them. 
They looked coldly on each other: it freezes their souls. 

In societies of this stamp, in which there are no 
fixed landmarks, every man is constantly spurred on 
by a desire to rise and a fear of falling. And as money, 
which is the chief mark by which men are classified 
and divided one from the other, fluctuates incessantly, 
passes from hand to hand, alters the rank of individu- 
als, raises families here, lowers them there, every one 
is forced to make constant and des,perate efforts to ac- 
quire or retain it. Hence the ruling passions become 
a desire for wealth at all cost, a taste for business, a 
love of gain, and a liking for comfort and material 
pleasures. These passions pervade all classes, not ex- 
cepting those which have hitherto been strangers to 
them. If they are not checked they will soon ener- 
vate and degrade them all. Now, it is essential to 
despotism to encourage and foster them. Debilitating 
passions are its natural allies ; they serve to divert at- 
tention from public affairs, and render the very name 
of revolution terrible. Despotism alone can supply 
the secrecy and darkness which cupidity requires to be 
at ease, and which embolden men to brave dishonor 
for the sake of fraudulent gain. These passions would 
have been strong in the absence of despotism : with its 
aid they are paramount. 

On the other hand, liberty alone can combat the 
vices which are natural to this class of societies, and 
arrest their downward progress. Nothing but liberty 

A2 



X PEEPACE. 

can draw men forth from the isolation into which their 
independence naturally drives them — can compel them 
to associate together, in order to come to a common 
understanding, to debate, and to compromise together 
on their joint concerns. Liberty alone can free them 
from money-worship, and divert them from their petty, 
every-day business cares, to teach them and make them 
feel that there is a country above and beside them. 
It alone awakens more energetic and higher passions 
than the love of ease, provides ambition with nobler 
aims than the acquisition of wealth, and yields the 
light which reveals, in clear outline, the virtues and the 
vices of mankind. 

Democratic societies which are not free may be rich, 
refined, ornate, even magnificent, and powerful in pro- 
portion to the weight of their homogeneous mass ; they 
may develop private virtues, produce good family-men, 
honest merchants, respectable landowners, and even 
good Christians — ^for their country is not of this world, 
and it is the glory of their religion that it produces 
them in the most corrupt societies and under the worst 
governments — theEoman empire during its decline was 
full of such as these ; but there are things which such 
societies as those I speak of can never produce, and 
these are great citizens, and, above all, a great people. 
I will go farther; I do not hesitate to affirm that the 
common level of hearts and minds will never cease to 
sink so long as equality and despotism are combined. 

This is what I thought and wrote twenty years 
ago. I acknowledge that nothing has since happened 
that could lead me to think or write otherwise. As I 
made known my good opinion of liberty when it was 



PREFACE. XI 

in favor, I can not be blamed for adhering to that 
opinion now that it is in disgrace. 

I must, moreover, beg to assure my opponents that 
I do not differ from them as widely as they perhaps 
imagine. Where is the man whose soul is naturally 
so base that he would rather be subject to the caprices 
of one of his fellow-men than obey laws which he had 
helped to make himself, if he thought his nation suffi- 
ciently virtuous to make a good use of liberty ? I do 
not think such a man exists. Despots acknowledge 
that liberty is an excellent thing ; but they want it all 
for themselves, and maintain that the rest of the world 
is unworthy of it. Thus there is no difference of opin- 
ion in reference to liberty ; we differ only in our ap- 
preciation of men; and thus it may be strictly said 
that one's love for despotism is in exact proportion to 
one's contempt for one's country. I must beg to be 
allowed to wait a little longer before I embrace that 
sentiment. 

I may say, I think, without undue self-laudation, 
that this book is the fruit of great labor. I could 
point to more than one short chapter that has cost me 
over a year's work. I could have loaded my pages 
with foot-notes, but I have preferred inserting a few 
only, and placing them at the end of the volume, with 
a reference to the pages to which they apply. They 
contain examples and proofs of the facts stated in the 
text. I could furnish many more if this book induced 
any one to take the trouble of asking for them. 



THE 



OLD REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION. 



BOOK FIRST. 
CHAPTER I. 

CONTKADICTORT OPESTIONS FORMED UPON THE REVOLUTION "WHEN 
IT BROKE OUT. 

PHILOSOPHERS and statesmen may learn a val- 
uable lesson of modesty from the history of our 
Revolution, for there never were events greater, better 
prepared, longer matured, and yet so little foreseen. 

With all his genius, Frederick the Great had no 
perception of what was at hand. He touched the Rev- 
olution, so to speak, but he did not see it. More than 
this, while he seemed to be acting according to his own 
impulse, he was, in fact, its forerunner and agent. Yet 
he did not recognize its approach ; and when at length 
it appeared full in view, the new and extraordinary 
characteristics which distinguished it from the common 
run of revolutions escaped his notice. 

Abroad, it excited universal curiosity. It gave birth 
to a vague notion that a new era was at hand. Na- 
tions entertained indistinct hopes of changes and re- 
forms, but no one suspected what they were to be. 
Princes and ministers did not even feel the confused 



14 THE OLD EEGIME 

presentiment wliich it stirred in the minds of their sub- 
jects. Thej viewed it simply as one of those chron- 
ic diseases to which every national constitution is sub- 
ject, and whose only eiFect is to pave the way for po- 
litical enterprises on the part of neighbors. "When 
they spoke truly about it, it was unconsciously. When 
the principal sovereigns of Germany proclaimed at Pil- 
nitz, in 1791, that all the powers of Europe were men- 
aced by the danger which threatened royalty in France, 
they said what was true, but at bottom they were far 
from thinking so. Secret dispatches of the time prove 
that these expressions were only intended as clever pre- 
texts to mask their real purposes, and disguise them 
from the public eye. They knew perfectly well — or 
thought they knew — that the French Revolution was a 
mere local and ephemeral accident, which might be 
turned to account. In this faith they formed plans, 
made preparations, contracted secret alliances ; quar- 
reled among themselves about the booty they saw be- 
fore them; were reconciled, and again divided; were 
ready, in short, for every thing except that which was 
going to happen. 

Englishmen, enlightened by the experience of their 
own history, and trained by a long enjoyment of polit- 
ical liberty, saw, through a thick mist, the steady ad- 
vances of a great revolution ; but they could not dis- 
cern its form, or foresee the influence it was destined 
to exercise over the world and over their own interests. 
Arthur Young, who traveled through France just be- 
fore the outbreak of the Eevolution, was so far from 
suspecting its real consequences that he rather feared 
it might increase the power of the privileged classes. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 15 

"As for the nobility iind the clergy," says he, "if this 
revolution enhances their preponderance, I fear it will 
do more harm than good." 

Burke's mind was illumined by the hatred he bore 
to the Eevolution from the first ; still he doubted for a 
time. His first inference was, that France would be 
weakened, if not annihilated. ' ' France is at this time, " 
he said, " in a political light, to be considered as ex- 
punged out of the system of Europe. Whether she 
can ever appear in it again as a leading power is not 
easy to determine ; but at present I consider France 
as not politically existing, and most assuredly it would 
take up much time to restore her to her former active 
existence. Gallos quoque in hellis Jloruisse audivi- 
Tnics — ' We have heard that the Gauls too were once 
noted in war,' may be the remark of the present gen- 
eration, as it was of an ancient one." 

Men judged as loosely on the spot. On the eve of 
the outbreak, no one in France knew what Avould be 
the result. Among all the contemporaneous cahiers, 
I have only found two which seem to mark any ap- 
prehension of the people. Fears are exj)ressed that 
royalty, or the court, as it was still called, will retain 
undue preponderance. The States-General are said to 
be too feeble, too short-lived. Alarm is felt lest they 
should suffer violence. The nobility is very u.neasy 
on this bead. Several cahiers affirm that " the Swiss 
troops will swear never to attack the citizens, even in 
case of affray or revolt." If the States-General are 
free, all the abuses may be corrected ; the necessary 
reform is extensive, but easy. 

Meanwhile the Eevolution pursued its course. It 



16 THE OLD EEGIME 

was not till the strange and terrible physiognomy of 
the monster's head was visible ; till it destroyed civil 
as well as political institutions, manners, customs, 
laws, and even the mother tongue ; till, having dashed 
in pieces the machine of government, it shook the 
foundations of society, and seemed anxious to assail 
even God himself; till it overflowed the frontier, and, 
by dint of methods unknown before, by new systems 
of tactics, by murderous maxims, and " armed "5pin- 
ions" (to use the language of Pitt), overthrew the land- 
marks of empires, broke crowns, and crushed sub- 
jects, while, strange to say, it won them over to its 
side : it was not till then that a change came over 
men's minds. Then sovereigns and statesmen began 
to see that what they had taken for a mere every-day 
accident in history was an event so new, so contrary 
to all form^er experience, so widespread, so monstrous 
and incomprehensible, that the human mind was lost 
in endeavoring to examine it. Some supposed that 
this unknown power, whose strength nothing could en- 
hance and nothing diminish, which could not be check- 
ed, and which could not check itself, was destined to 
lead human society to complete and final dissolution. 
M. de Maistre, in 1797, observed that "the French 
Eevolution has a satanic character." On the other 
hand, others discerned the hand of God in the Eevo- 
lution, and inferred a gracious design of Providence to 
people France ^nd the world with a new and better 
species. Several writers of that day seem to have 
been exercised by a sort of religious terror, such as 
Salvian felt at the sight of the barbarians. Burke, 
pursuing his idea, exclaims, " Deprived of the old gov- 
ernment, deprived in a manner of all government. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 17 

France, fallen as a monarcliy to common speculators, 
appears more likely to be an object of pity or insult, 
according to tlie disjDosition of the circumjacent pow- 
ers, than to be the scourge and terror of them all ; but 
out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in France 
lias arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a 
far more terrific guise than any ■\vhicli ever yet have 
overpowered the imagination and subdued the forti- 
tude of man. Going straight forward to its end, un- 
appalled by peril, unchecked by remorse, despising all 
common maxims and all common means, that hideous 
phantom has overpowered those who could not believe 
it was possible she could at all exist except on the 
principles which habit rather than nature has per- 
suaded them are necessary to their own particular wel- 
fare and to their own ordinary modes of action." 

Now, was the Revolution, in reality, as extraordina- 
ry as it seemed to its contemporaries? Was it as unex- 
ampled, as deeply subversive as they supposed? What 
was the real meaning, what the true character of this 
strange and terrible revolution ? What did it actual- 
ly destroy ? What did it create ? 

It appears that the proper time has come to put 
these questions and to answer them. This is the most 
opportune moment for an inquiry and a judgment upon 
the vast topic they embrace. Time has cleared from 
our eyes the film of passion which blinded those who 
took part in the movement, and time has not yet im- 
paired our capacity to appreciate the spirit which ani- 
mated them. A short while hence the task will have 
become arduous, for successful revolutions obliterate 
their causes, and thus, by their own act, become inex- 
plicable. 



18 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTER II. 

THAT THE FUNDAMENTAL AND FINAL OBJECT OF THE EEVOLUTION 
WAS NOT, AS SOME HAVE SUPPOSED, TO DESTROY RELIGIOUS AND 
TO WEAKEN POLITICAL AUTHORITY. 

ONE of the first measures of the French Eevolu- 
tion was an attack upon the Church. Of all the 
passions to which that Revolution gave birth, that of 
irreligion was the first kindled, as it was the last ex- 
tinguished. Even when the first enthusiasm of liber- 
ty had worn off, and peace had been purchased by the 
sacrifice of freedom, hostility to religion survived. Na- 
poleon subdued the liberal spirit of the Revolution, 
but he could not conquer its anti-Christian tendencies. 
Even in the times in which we live, men have fancied 
they were redeeming their servility to the most slen- 
der officials of the state by their insolence to God, and 
have renounced all that was free, noble, and exalted in 
the doctrines of the Revolution, in the belief that they 
were still faithful to its spirit so long as they were in- 
fidels. 

Yet nothing is easier than to satisfy one's self that 
the anti-religious war was a mere incident of the great 
Revolution ; a striking, but fleeting expression of its 
physiognomy ; a temporary result of ideas, and pas- 
sions, and accidents which preceded it — any thing but 
its own proper fruit. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 1^ 

It is generally understood — and justly so — that the 
philosophy of the eighteenth century was one of the 
chief causes of the Revolution ; and it is not to he de- 
nied that that philosophy was deeply irreligious ; but it 
was twofold, and the two divisions are widely distinct. 

One division or system contained all the new or re- 
vived opinions with reference to the conditions of soci- 
ety, and the principles of civil and political law. Such 
were, for example, the doctrines of the natural equali- 
ty of man, and the consequent aholition of all caste, 
class, or professional privileges, popular sovereignty, 
the paramount authority of the social hody, the uni- 
formity of rules These doctrines are not only 

the causes of the French Revolution ; they are, so to 
speak, its substance; they constitute the most funda- 
mental, the most durable, the truest portion of its work. 

The other system was widely different. Its leaders 
attacked the Church with absolute fiiry. They assail- 
ed its clergy, its hierarchy, its institutions, its doc- 
trines ; to overthrow these, they tried to tear up Chris- 
tianity by the roots. But this portion of the philoso- 
phy of the eighteenth century derived its origin from 
objects which the Revolution destroyed : it naturally 
disappeared with its cause, and was, so to speak, bm- 
ied in its triumph. I purpose returning to this great 
topic herafter, and will add but one word here in order 
to explain myself more fully. Christianity was hated 
by these philosophers less as a religious doctrine than 
as a political institution ; not because the priests as- 
sumed to regulate the concerns of the other world, but 
because they were landlords, seigniors, tithe-holders, 
administrators in tliis ; not because the Church could 



20 THE OLD REGIME 

not find a place in the new society which was being 
established, but because she then occupied the place 
of honor, privilege, and might in the society which was 
to be overthrown. 

See how time has confirmed this view, and is still 
confirming it under our own eyes ! Simultaneously 
with the consolidation of the political work of the Rev- 
olution, its religious work has been undone. The more 
thoroughly the political institutions it assailed have 
been destroyed ; the more completely the powers, in- 
fluences, and classes which were peculiarly obnoxious 
to it have been conquered, and have ceased in their 
ruin to be objects of hatred ; in fine, the more the cler- 
gy have held themselves aloof from the institutions 
which formerly fell by their side, the higher has the 
power of the Church risen, and the deeper has it taken 
root in men's minds. 

This phenomenon is not peculiar to France ; every 
Christian Church in Europe has gained ground since 
the French Revolution. 

Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose that 
democracy is naturally hostile to religion. Neither 
Christianity nor even Catholicism involves any contra- 
diction to the democratic principle ; both are, in some 
respects, decidedly favorable to it. All experience, in- 
deed, shows that the religious instinct has invariably 
taken deepest root in the popular heart. All the re- 
ligions which have disappeared found a last refuge 
there. Strange, indeed, it would be if the tendency of 
institutions based on the predominance of the pojoular 
will and popular passions were necessarily and abso- 
lutely to impel the human mind toward impiety. 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 21 

All that I have said of religious I may repeat with 
additional emphasis in regard to political authority. 

When the Eevolution overthrew simultaneously all 
the institutions and all the usages which had governed 
society and restrained mankind within bounds, it was, 
perhaps, only natural to suppose that its result would 
he the destruction, not of one particular frame of so- 
ciety, but of all social order ; not of this or that gov- 
ernment, but of all public authority. There was a de- 
gree of plausibility in assuming that it aimed essen- 
tially at anarchy ; yet I will venture to say that this 
also was an illusion. 

Less than a year after the Revolution had begun, 
Mirabeau wrote secretly to the king, " Compare the 
present state of things with the old regime, and con- 
sole yourself and take hope. A part — the greater part 
of the acts of the national assembly are decidedly fa- 
vorable to a monarchical government. Is it nothing to 
have got rid of Parliament, separate states, the clerical 
body, the privileged classes, and the nobility ? Rich- 
elieu would have liked the idea of forming but one 
class of citizens ; so level a surface assists the exer- 
cise of power. A series of absolute reigns would have 
done less for royal authority than this one year of 
Eevolution." He understood the Revolution like a 
man who was competent to lead it. 

The French Revolution did not aim merely at a 
change in an old government ,* it designed to abolish the 
old form of society. It was bound to assail all forms 
of established authority together ; to destroy acknowl- 
edged influences ; to efface traditions ; to substitute 
new manners and usages for the old ones ; in a word. 



22 THE OLD REGIME 

to sweep out of men's minds all the notions which had 
hitherto commanded respect and ohedience. Hence its 
singular anarchical aspect. 

But a close inspection brings to light from under the 
ruins an immense central power, which has gathered to- 
gether and grasped all the several particles of author- 
ity and influence formerly scattered among a host of 
secondary powers, orders, classes, professions, families, 
and individuals, sown broadcast, so to speak, over the 
whole social body. No such power had been seen in 
the world since the fall of the Eoman empire. This 
new power was created by the Eevolution, or, rather, it 
grew spontaneously out of the ruins the Revolution 
made. If the governments it created were fragile, 
they were still far stronger than any that had preceded 
them, and their very fragility, as will be shown here- 
after, sprang from the same cause as their strength. 

It was the simple, regular, grand form of this cen- 
tral power which Mirabeau discerned through the dust 
of the crumbling institutions of olden time. The mass- 
es did not see it, great as it was. Time gradually dis- 
closed it to all ; and now, princes can see nothing else. 
Admiration and envy of its work fill the mind, not only 
of the sovereigns it created, but of those who were 
strangers or inimical to its progress. All are busy de- 
stroying immunities, abolishing privileges throughout 
their dominions; mingling ranks, leveling, substitut- 
ing hired officials in the room of an aristocracy, a uni- 
form set of laws in the place of local franchises, a sin- 
gle strong government instead of a system of diversi- 
fied authorities. Their industry in this revolutionary 
work is unceasing ; when they meet an obstacle, they 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 23 

will sometimes even borrow a hint or a maxim from 
the Eevolution. They have been noticed inciting the 
poor against the rich, the commoner against the noble, 
the peasant against his lord. The French Eevolution 
was both their scourge and their tutor. 



24 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTEE III. 

THAT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, THOUGH POLITICAL, PURSUED THE 
SAME COURSE AS A RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION, AND WHY. 

ALL political and civil revolutions have been con- 
fined to a single country. The French Revolu- 
tion had no country ; one of its leading effects appear- 
ed to be to efface national boundaries from the map. 
It united and divided men, in spite of law, traditions, 
characters, language; converted enemies into fellow- 
countrymen, and brothers into foes ; or, rather, to 
speak more precisely, it created, far above particular 
nationalities, an intellectual country that was common 
to all, and in which every human creature could obtain 
rights of citizenship. 

ISTo similar feature can be discovered in any other 
political revolution recorded in history. But it occurs 
in certain religious revolutions. Therefore those who 
wish to examine the French Eevolution by the light 
of analogy must compare it with religious revolutions. 

Schiller observes with truth, in his History of the 
Thirty Years' War, that one striking effect of the Eef- 
ormation was that it led to sudden alliances and warm 
friendships among nations which hardly knew each 
other. Frenchmen were seen, for instance, fighting 
against Frenchmen, with Englishmen in their ranks. 
Men born on distant Baltic shores marched down into 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 25 

the heart of Germany to protect Germans of whom 
they had never heard before. All the foreign wars of 
the time partook of the nature of civil wars ; in all the 
civil wars foreigners bore arms. Old interests were 
forgotten in the clash of new ones ; questions of terri- 
tory gave way to questions of principle. All the old 
rules of politics and diplomacy were at fault, to the 
great surprise and grief of the politicians of the day. 
Precisely similar were the events which followed 1789 
in Europe. 

The French Eevolution, though political, assumed 
the guise and tactics of a religious revolution. Some 
farther points of resemblance between the two may be 
noticed. The former not only spread beyond the lim- 
its of France, but, like religious revolutions, spread 
by preaching and propagandism. A political revolu- 
tion, which inspired proselytism, and whose doctrines 
were preached abroad with as much warmth as they 
were practiced at home, was certainly a new spectacle, 
the most strikingly original of aU the novelties which 
were presented to the world by the French Eevolution. 
But we must not stop here. Let us go further, and 
try to discover whether these parallel results did not 
flow from parallel causes. 

Eeligions commonly affect mankind in the abstract, 
without allowance for additions or changes effected by 
laws, customs, or national traditions. Their chief aim 
is to regulate the concerns of man with God, and the 
reciprocal duties of men toward each other, independ- 
ently of social institutions. They deal, not with men 
of any particular nation or any particular age, but with 
men as sons, fathers, servants, masters, neighbors. 

B 



26: THE OLD REGIME 

Based on principles essential to human nature, they 
are applicable and suited to all races of men. Hence 
it is that religious revolutions have swept over such 
extensive areas, and have rarely been confined, as po- 
litical revolutions have, to the territory of one people, 
or even one race ; and the more abstract their charac- 
ter, the wider they have spread, in spite of differences 
of laws, climate, and race. 

The old forms of paganism, which were all more or 
less interwoven with political and social systems, and 
whose dogmas wore a national and sometimes a sort of 
municipal aspect, rarely traveled beyond the frontiers 
of a single country. They gave rise to occasional 
outbursts of intolerance and persecution, but never to 
proselytism. Hence, the first religious revolution felt 
in Western Europe was caused by the establishment 
of Christianity. That faith easily overstepped the 
boundaries which had checked the outgrowth of pa- 
gan systems, and rapidly conquered a large portion of 
the human race. I hope I shall exhibit no disrespect 
for that holy faith if I suggest that it owed its suc- 
cesses, in some degree, to its unusual disentanglement 
from all national peculiarities, forms of government, 
social institutions, and local or temporary considera- 
tions. 

The French Eevolution acted, with regard to things 
of this world, precisely as religious revolutions have 
acted with regard to things of the other. It dealt with 
the citizen in the abstract, independent of particular 
social organizations, just as religions deal with man- 
kind in general, independent of time and place. It in- 
quired, not what were the particular rights of French 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 27 

citizens, but what were the general rights and duties 
of mankind in reference to political concerns. 

It was by thus divesting itself of all that was pecu- 
liar to one race or time, and by reverting to natural 
principles of social order and government, that it be- 
came intelligible to all, and susceptible of simultane- 
ous imitation in a hundred different places. 

By seeming to tend rather to the regeneration of the 
human race than to the reform of France alone, it roused 
passions such as the most violent political revolutions 
had been incapable of awakening. It inspired prose- 
lytism, and gave birth to propagandism ; and hence as- 
sumed that quasi religious character which so terrified 
those who saw it, or, rather, became a sort of new re- 
ligion, imperfect, it is true, without God, worship, or 
future life, but still able, like Islamism, to cover the 
earth with its soldiers, its apostles, and its martyrs. 

It must not be supposed that all its methods were 
unprecedented, or aU the ideas it brought forward ab- 
solutely original. On many former occasions, even in 
the heart of the Middle Ages, agitators had invoked 
the general principles on which human societies rest 
for the purpose of overthrowing particular customs, 
and had assailed the constitution of their country with 
arguments drawn from the natural rights of man ; but 
all these experiments had been failures. The torch 
which set Europe on fire in the eighteenth century 
was easily extinguished in the fifteenth. Arguments 
of this kind can not succeed till certain changes in the 
condition, customs, and minds of men have prepared a 
way for their reception. 

There are times when men differ so widely that the 



28 THE OLD REGIME 

bare idea of a common law for all appears unintelligi-' 
He. There are others, again, when they will recog- 
nize at a glance the least approach toward such a law, 
and embrace it eagerly. 

The great wonder is not that the French Eevolution 
employed the methods it did, and conceived the ideas 
it brought forth ; what is wonderful and startling is 
that mankind had reached a point at which these meth- 
ods could be usefully employed, and these ideas readi- 
ly admitted. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 29 



CHAPTER lY. 

HOW THE SAME INSTITUTIONS HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED OVER NEAR- 
LY ALL EUROPE, AND WERE EVERY WHERE FALLING TO PIECES. 

THE tribes which overthrew the Roman empire, 
and eventually constituted modern nations, differ- 
ed in race, origin, and language ; they were alike in 
barbarism only. They found the empire in hopeless 
confusion, which they aggravated; and thus, when they 
settled, each was isolated from the others by the ruins 
it had made. Civilization was almost extinct. So-' 
cial order had ceased to exist. International commu- 
nication was difficult and dangerous. Safety dictated 
the division of the great European family into a thou- 
sand little states, which soon became exclusive and 
hostile to each other. 

Yet out of this chaos uniform laws suddenly issued. 

They were not borrowed from Roman legislation. 
They were, indeed, so much opposed to it that the old 
Roman law was the instrument afterward used to 
transform and abolish them.^ Their principles were 
original, and wholly different from any that had ever 
been broached before. Composed of symmetrical parts, 
knit together as closely as the articles of any modem 
code, they constituted a body of really learned laws for 
the use of a semi-barbarous people. 

It is not my design to inquire how such a system 
was formed and spread over Europe. I merely note 



30 THE OLD REGIME 

the fact that, during the Middle Ages, it existed to 
some extent in every country ; and in many, to the 
total exclusion of all other systems. 

I have had occasion to study the political institu- 
tions which flourished in England, France, and Ger- 
many during the Middle Ages. As I advanced in the 
work, I have been filled with amazement at the won- 
derful similarity of the laws established by races so 
far apart and so widely different. They vary con- 
stantly and infinitely, it is true, in matters of detail, 
but in the main they are identical every where. When- 
ever I discovered in the old legislation of Germany a 
political institution, a rule, or a power, I Imew that a 
thorough search would bring something similar to light 
in France and England ; and I never failed to find it 
so. Each of the three nations enabled me to under- 
stand the other two. 

In all three the government was carried on in ac- 
cordance with the same principles : the political assem- 
blies were constituted from the same materials, and 
armed with the same powers ; society was divided into 
the same classes, on the same sliding-scale ; the nobles 
occupied the same rank, enjoyed the same privileges, 
were marked by the same natural characteristics — in 
short, the men were, properly speaking, identically the 
same in all. 

The city constitutions resembled each other; the 
rural districts were governed on one uniform plan. 
There was no material difference in the condition of 
the peasantry; land was held, occupied, cultivated on 
the same plan, and the farmer paid the same taxes. 
From the confines of Poland to the Irish Sea we can 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 31 

trace the same seigniories, seigniors' court, feuds, rents, 
feudal services, feudal rights, corporate bodies. Some- 
times the names are the same, and, what is still more 
remarkable, the same idea pervades all these analo- 
gous institutions. I think it is safe to say that in the 
fourteenth century the various social, political, admin- 
istrative, judicial, economical, and literary institutions 
of Europe were more nearly alike than they are now, 
though civilization has done so much to facilitate in- 
tercourse and efface national barriers. 

The task I have undertaken does not require me to 
relate how this old constitution of Europe gradually 
gave way and broke down ; I merely state that in the 
eighteenth century it was in proximate ruin every 
where. ^ Decay was least conspicuous in the eastern 
half of the continent, and most in the west ; but old 
age and decrepitude were prominent on all sides. 

The records of the old Middle-Age institutions con- 
tain the history of their decline. It is well known 
that land registers {terriers) were kept in each seign- 
iory, in which, century after century, were entered the 
boimdaries of the feuds and seigniories, the rents due, 
the services to be rendered, the local customs. I have 
seen registers of the fourteenth and thirteenth centu- 
ries, which are masterpieces of method, perspicuity, 
and intellect. The more modem ones grow more ob- 
scure, more incomplete, more confused as they ap- 
proach our own day. It would seem as though the 
civilization of society had involved the relapse of the 
political system into barbarism. 

The old European constitution was better preserved 
in Germany than in France ; but there, too, a portion 



32 THE OLD REGIME 

of the institutions to wHcli it had given life were al- 
ready destroyed. One can judge of the ravages of 
time, however, better from the portion which survived 
than from that which had perished. 

Of the municipal franchises which, in the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries, had converted the chief cities 
of Germany into rich and enlightened republics,^ a mere 
empty shadow remained. Their enactments were un- 
repealed ; their magistrates bore the old titles, and ap^ 
peared to perform the old duties ; but the activity, the 
energy, the civic patriotism, the manly and fruitful vir- 
tues of olden time had vanished. These venerable in- 
stitutions seemed to have sunk down without dis- 
tortion. 

All the surviving mediaeval sources of authority had 
suffered from the same disease ; all alilie were decay- 
ed and languishing. Nor was this all; every thing 
which, without actually growing out of the mediaeval 
system, had been connected with it and marked by its 
stamp, seemed equally lifeless. Aristocracy wore an 
air of servile debility. Even political freedom, which 
had filled the Middle Ages with its works, became 
sterile in the dress in which they had clothed it. '*' Those 
provincial assemblies which had preserved their old 
constitution in its integrity were rather a hindrance 
than a help to civilization. They presented a stolid, 
impenetrable front to the march of intellect,, and drove 
the people into the arms of monarchs. There was 
nothing venerable in the age of these institutions ; the 
older they grew, the smaller their claims to respect ; 
and somehow, the more harmless they became, the more 
hatred they seemed to inspire.^ A German writer, whose 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 33 

sympathies were all on the side of the old regime un- 
der which he lived, says, " The present state of things 
is shameful for all of us, and even contemptible. It 
is strange how unfavorably men look upon every thing 
that is old. Novelty penetrates even the family cir- 
cle, and overturns its peace. Our very housekeepers 
want to get rid of their old furniture." Yet in Ger- 
many, as in France, society was then thrilling with ac- 
tivity, and highly prosperous ; but (mark this well ! it 
is the finishing touch to the picture) every living, act- 
ing, producing agent was new, and not only new, but 
contrary to the old. 

Royalty had nothing in common with mediaeval 
royalty ; its prerogatives were different, its rank had 
changed, its spirit was new, the homage it received was 
unusual. ^ The central power encroached on every side 
upon decaying local franchises. A hierarchy of pub- 
lic functionaries usurped the authority of the nobles. 
All these new powers employed methods and took for 
their guide principles which the Middle Ages either 
never knew or rejected, and which, indeed, were only- 
suitable for a state of society they never conceived. 

At first blush it would appear that the old constitu- 
tion of Europe is still in force in England ; but, on a 
closer view, this illusion is dispelled. Forget old 
names, pass over old forms, and you will find the feu- 
dal system substantially abolished there as early as the 
seventeenth century : all classes freely intermingled, 
an eclipsed nobility, an aristocracy open to all, wealth 
installed as the supreme power, all men equal before 
the law, equal taxes, a free press, public debates — phe- 
nomena which were all unknown to mediaeval society. 
B2 



34 THE OLD REGIME 

It was the skillful infusion of this young blood into 
the old feudal body which preserved its life, and im- 
bued it with fresh vitality, without divesting it of its 
ancient shape. England was a modern nation in the 
seventeenth century, though it preserved, as it were 
embalmed, some relics of the Middle Ages. 

This hasty glance at foreign nations was essential 
to a right comprehension of the following pages. 'No 
one can understand the French Revolution without 
having seen and studied something more than France. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 35 



CHAPTER V. 

WHAT DID THE FRENCH REVOLUTION REALLY ACHIEVE ? 

THE object of the preceding inquiries was to clear 
the way for the solution of the question I origin- 
ally put : What was the real object of the Revolution ? 
what was its peculiar character ? why was it brought 
about ? what did it achieve ? 

It is an error to suppose, as some have done, that 
the object of the Revolution was to overthrow the 
sovereignty of religious creeds. Despite appearances, 
it was essentially_a_social..and political revolution. It 
did not tend to perpetuate or consolidate disorder, to 
y methodize anarchy" (as one of its leading opponents 
remarked), but rather to augment the power and the 
rights of public authority. It was not calculated to 
change the character of our civilization, as others im- 
agined, or to arrest its progress, or even to alter, es- 
sentially, any of the fundamental laws upon which our 
Western societies rest. When it is disengaged from 
the extraneous incidents which imparted a temporary 
coloring to its complexion, and is examined on its own 
proper merits, it will be seen that its sole effect was to 
abolish those institutions which had held undivided 
sway over Europe for several centuries, and which are 
usually known as the feudal system,; in order to sub- 
stitute therefor a social and political organization mark- 



36 THE OLD EEGIME 

ed by more uniformity and more simplicity, and rest- 
ing on the basis of the equality of all ranks. 

That alone required a stupendous revolution ; for 
these old institutions were not only connected and in- 
terwoven with all the religious and political laws of 
Europe, but had, besides, created a host of ideas, and 
feelings, and habits, and customs, which had grown up 
around them. To destroy and cut out of the social 
body a part which clung to so many organs involved 
a frightful operation. This made the Eevolution ap- 
pear even greater than it was. It appeared the uni- 
versal destroyer ; for what it did destroy was linked, 
and, in some degree, incorporated with almost every 
thing else. 

Eadical as it was, the Eevolution introduced fewer 
innovations than has been generally supposed, as I 
shall have occasion to show hereafter. What it really 
achieved was the destruction — rtotal, or partial, for the 
work is still in progress — of every thing which pro- ^ 
ceeded from the old aristocratical and feudal institu- 
tions, and of every thing which clung to them or bore 
in any way their distinguishing mark. It respected 
no legacy of the past but such as had been foreign to 
these institutions, and could exist without them. 

It was, least of all, a casual accident. True, it took 
the world by surprise ; yet it was the mere natural re- 
sult of very long labors, the sudden and violent term- 
ination of a task which had successively engaged ten 
generations of men. Had it never taken place, the 
old social edifice would none the less have fallen, 
though it would have given way piecemeal instead of 
breaking down with a crash. The Eevolution effect- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 37 

ed suddenly, by a convulsive and sudden effort, with- 
out transition, precautions, or pity, what would have 
been gradually effected by time had it never occurred. 
That was its achievement. 

It is surprising that this fact, which we discern so 
plainly to-day, should have once been hidden from the 
eyes of the shrewdest observers. Burke appeals to 
the French : " Had you but made it to be understood 
that, in the delusion of your amiable error, you had 
gone farther than your wise ancestors ; that you were 
resolved to assume your ancient privileges while you 
preserved the spirit of your ancient and your recent 
loyalty and honor ; or, if diffident of yourselves, and 
not clearly discerning the almost obliterated consti- 
tution of your ancestors, you had but looked to your 
neighbors in this land, who had kept alive the ancient 
principles and the models of the old common law of 
Europe " 

Burke can not see that the real object of the Bevo- 
lution is to abolish that very common law in Europe ; 
he does not perceive that that, and nothing else, is the 
gist of the movement. 

But, as society was every where prepared for this 
Eevolution, why did it break out in France rather than 
abroad ? Why did it present features here which were 
either wholly dropped or only partially reproduced in 
other countries ? This secondary inquiry is worth re- 
solving : it will form the subject of the following Book. 



BOOK SECOND. 
CHAPTER I. 

WHY THE FEUDAL RIGHTS WERE MORE ODIOUS TO THE PEOPLE IN 
FRANCE THAN ANY WHERE ELSE. 

APAEADOX meets us at the threshold of the in- 
quiiy. The Revolution was designed to abolish 
the remains of the institutions of the Middle Ages : yet 
it did not "break out in countries where those institu- 
tions were in full vitality and practically oppressive, 
but, on the contrary, in a country where they were 
hardly felt at all ; whence it would follow that their 
yoke was the most intolerable where it was in fact 
lightest. 

At the close of the eighteenth century there was 
hardly any part of Germany in which serfdom was 
completely abolished.*^ « Generally speaking, peas- 
ants still formed part of the stock on lands, as they 
had done during the Middle Ages. Nearly all the 
soldiers in the armies of Maria Theresa and Frederick 
were absolute serfs. 

In 1788, the general rule with regard to German 
peasants was that they should not leave the seigniory, 
and if they did that they should be brought back by 
force. They were subject to dominical courts, and by 
them punished for intemperance and idleness. They 
could not rise in their calling, or change it, or marry 
without leave from their master. A great proportion 
of their time was given up to his service. Seigniorial 



THE OLD REGIME, ETC. 39 

corvees were rigorously exacted, and absorbed, in some 
places, three days of the week. The peasant rebuilt 
and kept in repair his seignior's house, took his prod- 
uce to market, served him as coachman and messen- 
ger. Many years of his youth were spent in domestic 
service on the manor. A serf might obtain a farm, 
but his rights of property always remained inchoate. 
He was bound to farm his land under his seignior's 
eye, according to his seignior's directions ; he could 
neither alienate nor mortgage it without leave. He 
was sometimes bound to sell the produce of his farm, 
sometimes forbidden to sell ; he was always bound to 
keep his land under cultivation. His estate did not 
wholly pass to his children; a portion went to the 
seignior. 

I have not groped through antiquated laws to find 
these rules ; they are to be found in the code drawn 
up by Frederick the Great, and promulgated by his 
successor just before the French Revolution broke out.^ 

Nothing of the kind had existed for many, many 
years in France. Peasants came and went, bought and 
sold, wrought and contracted without let or hindrance. 
In one or two eastern provinces, acquired by conquest, 
some stray relics of serfdom survived ; but it had dis- 
appeared every where else ; and that so long ago, that 
even the period of its disappearance had been forgot- 
ten. Elaborate researches of recent date establish that 
it had ceased to exist in Normandy as early as the 
tliirteenth century. 

But of all the changes that had taken place in the 
condition of the French peasantry, the most important 
was that which had enabled them to become freehold- 



40 THE OLD REGIME 

ers. As this fact is not universally understood, though 
it is so important, I shall dwell upon it briefly. 

It has been commonly believed that the subdivision 
of farms began with and was caused by the Kevolution. 
All kinds of evidence establish the very reverse. 

Twenty years before the outbreak, agricultural so- 
cieties deplored the subdivision of farm lands. About 
the same period Turgot declared that " the division of 
estates was so general that a property barely sufficient 
to maintain a family was often parceled out among five 
or six children, who were consequently unable to sup- 
port themselves by agriculture alone." A few years 
later, Necker observed that the number of small rural 
estates had become immense. 

A few years before the Revolution a steward of a 
seigniory informed his employer, in a secret report, 
that " estates are being subdivided so equally that the 
fact is growing alarming : every body wants to have a 
piece of this and a piece of that, and farms are inces- 
santly split into shreds." What more could be said 
of our own time ? 

I have myself taken infinite pains to reconstruct the 
cadastres, so to speak, of the old regime, and I have 
occasionally succeeded. The law of 1790, imposing a 
land tax, devolved upon each parish the duty of pre- 
paring a schedule of the estates within its limits. Most 
of these schedules have disappeared. I have, howev- 
er, discovered them in some villages, and I find, on 
comparing them with our modern rolls, that the num- 
ber of landed proprietors was formerly one half and 
sometimes two thirds of what it is now ; a surprising 
fact, as the total population of France has, since that 
time, increased more than twenty-five per cent. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 41 

Then, as now, a sort of mania for the acquisition of 
land pervaded the rural population. A judicious con- 
temporary observer notes that "land is selling above 
its value, owing to the rage of the peasantry to be- 
come landowners. All the savings of the lower class- 
es, which in other countries are lodged in private hands 
or invested in public securities, are used for the pur- 
chase of land in France." 

None of the novelties which astonished Arthur 
Young on his first visit to France appeared to him so 
striking as the infinite subdivision of land among the 
peasantry, who, he estimated, held among them one 
half the landed property in the kingdom. " I had no 
idea of such a state of things," he writes more than 
once ; nor, indeed, could he have, for no such phenom- 
enon existed beyond the frontiers of France or their 
immediate neighborhood. 

There had been peasant proprietors in England, but 
they were, even then, growing rare. In Germany, too, 
there had been, from time to time, in every section of 
the country, free farmers owning portions of the soil.& 
The oldest German customs recognized a freehold 
peasantry, and embraced curious regulations regarding 
land held by them ; but the nuniber of such landhold- 
ers was always small, and their case an exceptional 
one. 

The only portions of Germany where, at the close 
of the eighteenth century, the peasantry were landhold- 
ers, and comparatively free, were those which bordered 
on the Rhine ;^ and it was in the Rhenish provinces 
that the French revolutionary fever developed itself 
first and raged most fiercely. Those portions of Gerr 



42 THE OLD REaiME 

many which resisted the Eevolution the longest were 
those where neither freeholds nor rural liberty had 
made their appearance ; a significant fact. 

It is, then, a vulgar error to suppose that the subdi- 
vision of property in France dates from the Eevolution. 
It began much farther back. It is true that the Eev- 
olution was the means of bringing into market the 
Church property and many of the estates of the no- 
bility; but it will be found, on examination of the 
sales (a task which I have occasionally had patience 
to perform), that the bulk of these lands passed into 
the hands of persons who held land already, so that no 
great increase in the number of landowners can have 
taken place. They were already, to use the ambitious 
but accurate expression of M. Necker, immensely nu- 
merous. ' 

The Eevolution did not divide, it freed land. All 
these small landowners were bound to render various 
feudal services, of which they could not get rid, and 
which gravely impeded a proper development of their 
property. 

That these services were onerous can not be ques- 
tioned. Still, the very circumstance which it would 
seem ought to have lightened their burden rendered it 
intolerable. A revolution scarcely less radical than 
that which had enabled them to become freeholders had 
released the peasantry of France, alone out of all Eu- 
rope, from the government of their rural lords. 

Brief as is the interval which divides us from the old 
regime, and often as we see persons who were born un- 
der it, it seems already lost in the night of time. So 
radical was the revolution which has intervened, that 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 43 

it appears to have perished ages ago, and to be now 
buried in obscurity. Hence there are but few persons 
who can give a correct answer to the simple question 
— How were the rural districts governed before 1789? 
Nor, indeed, can any precise and comprehensive an- 
swer be found in books, or elsewhere than in the official 
records of the time. 

I have often heard it remarked that, long after the 
nobility had ceased to participate in the government 
of the kingdom, the rural administration remained in 
their hands, and the seigniors still governed the peas- 
antry. This too looks like a misconception. 

In the eighteenth century, all parochial business 
was transacted by functionaries who were not seignio- 
rial agents, and who, instead of being chosen by the 
seigniors, were either appointed by the intendant of 
the province or elected by the peasantry. It devolved 
upon these officers to distribute the taxes, to repair 
the churches, to build schools, to convene and preside 
over parish meetings ; to administer and superintend 
the expenditure of the funds of the comrriune; to in- 
stitute or answer, on behalf of the community, all nec- 
essary legal proceedings. The seignior had lost not 
only the management, but even the supervision of these 
petty local matters. All parish officers were subject 
to the government or the central power, as I shall 
show in the following chapter. Nor did the seignior 
figure any longer as the king's deputy in the parish. 
The execution of the laws, the assembling of the mi- 
litia, the levying of the taxes, the promulgation of the 
king's commands, the distribution of his alms, were no 
longer intrusted to the seignior. They devolved upon 



44 THE OLD REGIME 

new functionaries. The seignior was in fact nothing 
more than a simple individual, isolated from his fel- 
lows by the enjoyment of peculiar immunities and priv- 
ileges ; his rank was different — ^his power no greater 
than theirs. The intendants were careful to remind 
their sub-agents that "the seignior is nothing more 
than the first peasant in the parish." 

The cantons exhibit the same spectacle as the par- 
ishes. Nowhere do the nobles, either collectively or 
separately, administer public affairs. 

This was peculiar to France. Every where else, that 
striking feature of the old feudal system, the connection 
between the ownership of land and the government of 
its inhabitants, had been partially preserved. England 
was administered as well as governed by its chief land- 
holders. In parts of Germany, such as Prussia and 
Austria, the sovereigns had contrived to shake off the 
control of the nobility in state affairs ; but they still 
abandoned the government of the rural districts to the 
seigniors, and even where they assumed to control, did 
not venture to supersede them. 

In France, the only public department in which the 
nobles stiU had a hand was the administration of jus- 
tice. Leading noblemen still preserved a right of juris- 
diction over certain cases (which were decided by judges 
in their name), and occasionally issued police regula- 
tions for the use of their seigniories ; but their juris- 
diction had been so curtailed, and limited, and over- 
ridden by the royal courts, that the seigniors who still 
enjoyed it viewed it rather as a source of income than 
as a source of power. 

The other rights of the nobility had shared the same 



AND THE JIEVOLUTION. 45 

fate. They had lost their political significance, but 
their pecuniary value had been retained and occasion- 
ally augmented. 

I am alluding now only to those tangible privileges 
which were known as feudal rights proper, as they 
alone affected the people. 

It is no easy matter to point out what they actually 
were in 1789, for their number had been immense, and 
their diversity prodigious. Many had disappeared al- 
together. Others had undergone modifications, so that 
the words used to describe them were not easily under- 
stood even by contemporaries ; they are necessarily 
fiill of obscurities for us. Still, a careful study of the 
writers on feudal law in the eighteenth century, and a 
searching inquiry into the various local customs, per- 
mits us to range the then existing feudal rights in a 
few leading classes, all others being mere isolated cases. 

Seigniorial corvees were almost wholly disused. 
Many of the tolls on highways were either substan- 
tially reduced or abolished, though they were still met 
with in a majority of the provinces. The seigniors 
still levied a toll upon fairs and markets. It is well 
known that they enjoyed an exclusive privilege of hunt- 
ing. Generally spealdng, none but they could keep 
pigeons or own dove-cotes. The farmers were every 
where bound to carry their grain to the seignior's mill, 
their grapes to his wine-press. Mutation fines — a tax 
paid to the seignior on every purchase or sale of lands 
within the seigniory — were universally in force. On 
all land, moreover, ground-rents {cens et rentes foncv- 
eres) and returns in money or kind were exacted from 
the proprietor by the seignior, and were essentially ir- 



46 THE OLD KEGIME 

redeemable. One single feature is common to all these 
various rules : all bear upon tlie soil or its produce ; 
all are leveled at the farmer. 

Clerical seigniors enjoyed the same advantages as 
their lay brethren ; for, though there was no similitude 
between the Church and the feudal system in point of 
origin, destiny, or character, and though they were nev- 
er actually incorporated into one, they clung together 
so closely that they seemed incrusted one upon the 
other. 1^ 1 

Bishops, canons, ahbes held feuds and seigniories in 
virtue of their ecclesiastical rank ; convents were usu- 
ally the seigniors of the village in which they stood. "^ 
They owned serfs at a time when no other seignior in 
France did. They exacted corvees, levied toll upon 
fairs and markets, owned the only oven, the only mill, 
the only wine-press, the only bull in the seigniory. 
Besides these rights as seigniors, the French clergy, 
like the clergy elsewhere, levied tithes. 

The main point, however, to which I wish to draw 
attention just now, is the fact that analogous feudal 
rights were in force all over Europe at that time, and 
that in France they were far less burdensome than in 
other parts of the Continent. As an illustration of 
the difference I may cite corvees, which in France 
were rarely claimed and slight, in Germany universal- 
ly and rigorously exacted. 

More than this, the feudal rights which roused most 
indignation among our ancestors, as being not only un- 
just, but inimical to civilization — such, for instance, 
as tithes, inalienable ground-rents {rentes fondtres)^ 
interminable rent-charges, and mutation fines, which, 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. , 47 

in the somewhat forcible idiom of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, were said to constitute the "slavery of the land," 
were all more or less in force in England. Many of 
them are still in full vigor, and yet English agricul- 
ture is the most perfect and richest in the world. The 
English people hardly notice their existence. 

How did it happen, then, that these usages roused 
in France a hatred so fierce that it survived its cause, 
and seems as though it would never he extinguished ? 
The phenomenon is due partly to the fact that the 
French peasant was a landholder, and partly to his 
emancipation from the government of his seignior. 
Other causes co-operated, no doubt ; but, I take it, 
these were the main reasons. 

Had the peasantry not been landholders, they would 
have paid no attention to many of the burdens laid by 
the feudal system on real estate. Tithes, which are 
levied on produce, interest no one but farmers. Rent- 
charges are immaterial to those who do not own land. 
Legal hindrances to the development of property are 
no serious inconvenience to those who are hired to de- 
velop it for others. And, on the other hand, if the 
French peasantry had still been governed by their 
seigniors, they would have borne with the feudal rights 
more patiently, for they would have viewed them in 
the light of a natural consequence of the constitution 
of the country. 

Aristocracies, which possess not merely privileges, 
but actual power, which govern and administer public 
affairs, may exercise private rights of great magnitude 
without attracting much attention. In the old feudal 
times people looked upon the nobility as they now look 



48 THE OLD EEGIME 

on government : they Ibore its impositions for the sake 
of the protection it afforded. If the nobility possessed 
inconvenient privileges and exacted onerous duties, it 
secured public order, administered justice, executed the 
laws, succored the weak, managed public affairs. It 
was when it ceased to do these things that the burden 
of its privileges began to be felt, and its very existence 
became inexplicable. 

Picture to yourself, I beg, the French peasant of the 
eighteenth century, or, rather, the peasant you see to- 
day, for he is still the same ; his condition has changed, 
but not his character. Picture him, as the documents 
of the time depict him, so eager for land that he saves 
all his money to buy, and buys at any price. In or- 
der to purchase, he is bound, in the first place, to pay a 
tax, not to the government, but to some neighbors of 
his, who have no more authority, and no more to do 
with public business than he. Still he buys, and puts 
his heart into his land with his seed. The idea that 
this little corner of the vast universe belongs to him 
alone fills him with pride and independence. But the 
same neighbors pass along and compel him to work on 
their land without wages. If he tries to protect his 
harvest from the game, they prevent him. He can not 
cross the river without paying them toll. He, can not 
take his produce to market and sell it till he has bought 
leave to do so from them ; and when, on his return 
home, he wants to consume in his family the surplus 
of his produce — sown by his hands and grown under 
his eyes — he finds he must first send his grain to their 
mill to be ground, and to their oven to be cooked. 
The largest part of the income of his little estate goes 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 49 

to the same parties in tlie shape of rents, which can not 
be redeemed or got rid of in any way. 

Let him do what he like, he can not but meet at ev- 
ery step of his life these same neighbors, who interfere 
with his enjoyments, impede his work, consume his 
produce; and when he has done with these, others, 
dressed in black, make their appearance, and sweep off 
the clearest part of his harvest. Picture, if you can, 
the condition, the wants, the character, the passions of 
such a man, and estimate the store of hatred and envy 
he is laying up in his heart !^ 

The feudal system, though stripped of its political 
attributes, was still the greatest of our civil institu- 
tions ;° but its very curtailment was the source of its 
unpopularity. It may be said, with perfect truth, that 
the destruction of a part of that system rendered the 
remainder a hundred-fold more odious than the whole 
had ever appeared. 

C 



60 _ THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTEE II. 

THAT WE OWE "ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALIZATION," NOT TO THE 
REVOLUTION OR THE EMPIRE, AS SOME SAT, BUT TO THE OLD RE- 
GIME. 

I ONCE heard an orator, in the days when we had po- 
litical assemblies, call administrative centralization 
" that noble conquest of the Eevolution which Europe 
envies us." I am willing to admit that centralization 
was a noble conquest, and that Europe envies us its 
possession ; but I deny that it was a conquest of the 
Eevolution. It was, on the contrary, a feature of the 
old regime, and, I may add, the only one which out- 
lived the Eevolution, because it was the only one that 
was suited to the new condition of society created by 
the Eevolution. A careful perusal of this chapter will 
perhaps convince the reader that I have more than 
proved this. 

I must, at the outset, beg to be permitted to set aside 
those provinces known as pays d^ttats^ which did actu- 
ually, or, at least, had the appearance of partially con- 
trolling the administration of their own government. 

The pays d^etats^ situated at the extremities of the 
kingdom, contained barely one fourth of the total pop- 
ulation of France ; and, with one or two exceptions, 
their provincial liberties were in a dying condition. I 
shall have occasion hereafter to return to them, and to 
show how far the central power had rendered them 
subject to the ordinary rules.* 

* See Appendix. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 51 

I purpose to devote attention at present chiefly to 
those provinces which were styled, in administrative 
parlance, j?<22/5 d' election^ though there were fewer elec- 
tions there than any where else. They surrounded 
Paris on all sides, bordering each on the other, and 
constituting the fairest portion of France. 

A first glance at the old government of the kingdom 
leaves an impression of a host of diversified rules, and 
authorities, and concurrent powers. France seems to 
be covered with administrative bodies and independent 
functionaries, who, having purchased their ofiices, can 
not be displaced. Their functions are often so inter- 
twined and similar that it seems they must clash and 
interfere Avith each other. 

The courts are invested with some legislative au- 
thority. They establish rules, which are binding with- 
in the limits of their jurisdiction. They occasionally 
join issue with the government, blame its measures 
loudly, and decry its agents. Single judges make the 
police regulations in the cities and boroughs where they 
live. 

City charters differ widely. Their magistrates bear 
different titles, or derive their authority from different 
sources. In one place we find a mayor, in another 
consuls, in a third syndics. Sojne of these are chosen 
by the king ; others are appointed by the old seignior, 
or by the prince in whose domain the city lies ; others 
are elected by the people for a year; others, again, 
have purchased their office, and hold it for life. 

These are all old ruined authorities. ' Among them, 
however, is found an institution either new or lately 
transformed^ which remains to be described. In the 



62 THE OLD REGIME 

heart of the kingdom, and close to the monarch, an ad- 
ministrative "body of singular power has lately grown 
up and absorbed all minor powers. That is the Koy- 
al Council. 

Though its origin is ancient, most of its functions 
are modern. ' It is 'every thing at once : supreme court 
of justice, for it can reverse the decision of all ordi- 
nary tribunals and highest administrative authority, 
from which all subordinate authorities derive their 
power. As adviser of the king, it possesses, under 
him, legislative powers, discusses all and proposes 
most of the laws, levies and distributes the taxes. It 
makes rules for the direction of aU government agents. 
It decides all important affairs in person, and superin- 
tends the working of all subordinate departments. All 
business originates with it, or reaches it at last ; yet it 
has no fixed, well-defined jurisdiction. Its decisions 
are the king's, though they seem to be the Council's. 
Even while it is administering justice, it is nothing 
more than an assembly of "givers of advice," as the 
Parliament said in one of its remonstrances.^- 

This Council is not composed of nobles, but of per- 
sons of ordinary or low extraction, who have filled 
various offices and acquired an extensive knowledge 
of business. They all hold office during good behav- 
ior. 

It works noiselessly, discreetly, far less pretentious 
than powerful. It has no brilliancy of its own. Its 
proximity to the king makes it a partner in every im- 
portant measure, but his greater effulgence eclipses it.^ 

As the national administration was in the hands of 
a single body, nearly the whole executive direction of 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 53 

home affairs was in like manner intrusted to a single 
agent, the comptroller-general. 

Old almanacs furnish lists of special ministers for 
each province, but an examination of the "business rec- 
ords shows that these ministers had very little impor- 
tant business to transact. That fell to the lot of the 
comptroller -general, who gradually monopolized the 
management of all money affairs — in other words, the 
whole public administration. He was alternately min^ 
ister of finance, of the interior, of public works, of com- 
merce. 

On the same principle, one agent in each province 
sufficed. As late as the eighteenth century, some great 
seigniors were entitled provincial governors. They 
were the representatives, often by hereditary descent, 
of feudal royalty. They enjoyed honors still, but they 
were unaccompanied by power. The substantial gov^ 
emment was in the hands of the intendant. 

That functionary was not of noble extraction. He 
was invariably a stranger to the province, a young man 
with his fortune to make. He obtained his office nei- 
ther by purchase, election, nor inheritance ; he was se- 
lected by the government from among the inferior 
members of the Council of State, and held his office 
during good behavior. While in his province, he rep- 
resented that body, and was hence styled in office di- 
alect the absent commissioner {coniTnissaire departt). 
His powers were scarcely less than those of the coun- 
cil itself, though his decisions were subject to appeal. 
Like the Council, he held administrative and judicial 
authority : he corresponded with ministers ; he was, 



54 THE OLD EEGIME 

in his province, the sole instrument of the will of gov- 
ernment. 

Under him he appointed for each canton an officer 
called a sub-delegate {suhdelegue)^ who also held of- 
fice during good behavior. The intendant was usual- 
ly the first noble of his family ; the sub-delegate was 
always a commoner, yet the latter was the sole repre- 
sentative of the government in his little sphere, as the 
intendant was in his province. He was subject to the 
intendant, himself subject to the minister. 

The Marquis d'Argenson tells us in his Memoirs 
that one day Law said to him, " I never could have 
believed beforehand what I saw when I was comp- 
troller of finances. Let me tell you that this kingdom 
of France is governed by thirty intendants. You have 
neither Parliament, nor estates, nor governors ; nothing 
but thirty masters of requests, on whom, so far as the 
provinces are concerned, welfare or misery, plenty or 
want, entirely depend." 

These powerful officials were, however, outwardly 
eclipsed by the remains of the old feudal aristocracy, 
thrown into the shade by its lingering splendor ; hence 
it was that even in their day one saw so little of them, 
though their hand was every where felt. Li society, 
the nobility took precedence of them in virtue of their 
rank, their wealth, and the respect always paid to what 
is ancient. In the government, the nobility surround- 
ed the king and constituted the court ; noblemen led 
the armies and commanded the fleet ; they performed 
those duties, in a word, which are most noticed by con- 
temporaries, and too often best remembered by pos- 
terity. A seignior of high rank would have felt him- 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 55 

self insulted by the offer of a place of intendant ; the 
poorest gentleman of his house would have disdained 
to accept it. In their eyes the intendants were the 
types of usurped authority, new men, employed to look 
after burghers and peasants ; at best, very poor com- 
pany. For all this, these men governed France, as 
Law said, and as we shall soon discover. 

Let us begin with the right of levying taxes, which 
may be said to involve all other rights. 

It is well known that a portion of the taxes were 
farmed out to financial companies, which levied them 
under the directions of the Eoyal Council. All other 
taxes, such as the taille^ capitation-tax, and twentieths, 
were established and levied directly by the agents of 
the central administration, or under their all-powerful 
control. 

Every year the Council fixed and distributed among 
the provinces the amount of the taille and its numer- 
ous accessories. ^The session and decision of the Coun- 
cil were secret ; the taille increased year after year, and 
no one was aware of it., 

The taille was a very old tax ; in foniier times it 
had been apportioned and levied by local agents, who 
were independent of government, and held office in 
virtue of their birth, or by election, or by purchase. 
Such were the "seignior," the "parochial collector," 
the "treasurers of France," the "select-men" (elics). 
These titles were still in existence in the eighteenth 
century ; but some of the persons who bore them had 
ceased wholly to have to do with the taille, while oth- 
ers were only concerned with it in a subordinate and 
secondary capacity. The whole real authority on the 



56 THE OLD REGIME 

subject was in the hands of the intendant and his 
agents ; it was he who apportioned the taille among 
the parishes, directed and overlooked the collectors, 
granted delays or remissions* 

More modern imposts, such as the capitation-tax, 
were regulated by government without interference 
from the surviving officers of the old system. The 
comptroller-general, the intendant, and the Council fix^ 
ed the amount of each impost, and levied it without 
the intervention of the taxables. 

Let us pass from money to men. 

Surprise has been expressed at the docility with 
which the French bore the burden of the conscription 
during and after the Revolution ; but it must be borne 
in mind that they had long been used to it. The mi- 
litia system which had preceded it was more onerous, 
though the contingents raised were smaller. From 
time to time, in the country parts, young men were 
drawn by lot to serve in militia regiments for a term 
of six years. 

As the militia was a comparatively modern institu- 
tion, none of the feudal authorities interfered with it ; 
it was wholly under the control of the central govern- 
ment. The entire contingent, and the proportion to be 
borne by each province, were regulated by the Council. 
The intendant fixed the number of men to be furnish- 
ed by each parish. His sub-delegate presided over the 
lottery, awarded exemptions, decided who were to re- 
main at home and who were to march. It was his 
duty to hand over the latter to the military authorities. 
There was no appeal from him but to the intendant 
and the Council. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 57 

It may be added here that, except in the jpays d^etats, 
all public works, including those which were exclusive- 
ly-local, were decided upon and undertaken by the agents 
of the central power. 

Other authorities, such as the seignior, the depart- 
ment of finance, the road trustees {grands voyers), were 
nominally entitled to co-operate in the direction of these 
works. But practically these old authorities did little 
or nothing, as the most cursory glance at the records 
shows. All highways and roads from city to city were 
built and kept in repair out of the general public fund. 
They were planned and the contracts given out by the 
Council. The intendant superintended the engineer- 
ing work, the sub-delegate mustered the men who were 
bound to labor. To the old authorities was left the 
task of seeing to parish roads, which accordingly be- 
came impassable. 

The chief agent of the central government for public 
works was the Department of Bridges and Roads {jponts 
et chaussees). Here a striking resemblance to our 
modern system becomes manifest. The establishment 
of Bridges and Roads had a council and a school ; in- 
spectors, who traveled each year throughout France; 
engineers residing on the spot, and intrusted, under the 
orders of the intendant, with the direction of the works. 
Most of the old institutions which have been adopted 
in modern times — and they are more numerous than is 
generally supposed — have lost their names while re- 
taining then- substance. This one has preserved both 
— a very rare instance. 

Upon the central government alone devolved the 
duty of preserving the peace in the provinces. Mount- 
G2 



58 THE OLD REGIME 

ed police {marechaussee) were scattered over the king- 
dom in small detachments, ready to act under the or- 
ders of the intendants. It was with these troops, and, 
in case of need, with the aid of the regular armj, that 
the intendant met all sudden outbreaks, arrested vag- 
abonds, repressed mendicity, crushed the riots which 
the price of food constantly excited. It never happen- 
ed that the government was driven to call upon its sub- 
jects for assistance, as had been common enough at 
one time, except in cities, where there was usually a 
civic guard, composed of men selected and officers ap- 
pointed by the intendant. 

The courts had preserved and frequently exercised 
the right of making police regulations ; but they were 
only applicable to the territory within the court's juris- 
diction, and not unfrequently to a single place. They 
were liable to rejection by the Council, and were often 
so rejected, especially regulations made by inferior 
courts. On the other hand, the Council constantly 
made regulations that were applicable to the whole 
kingdom, as well on matters beyond the authority of 
the courts as on those which were within the scope of 
that authority. These regulations, or, as they were 
then called. Orders in Council {arrets du conseiV)^ were 
immensely numerous, especially toward the period of 
the Revolution. It is hardly possible to mention a 
branch of social economy or political organization 
which was not remodeled by Orders in Council during 
the last forty years of the old regime. 

In the old feudal society, the seignior's extensive 
rights weie counterpoised by extensive obligations. He 
was bound to succor the indigent on his domain. A 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 59 

trace of this principle is to be found in the Prussian 
code of 1795, where it is said, "The seignior must see 
to it that poor peasants receive education. He should, 
as far as he can, procure means of subsistence for those 
of his vassals who own no land. If any of them fall 
into poverty, he is bound to aid them." 

No such law had existed in France for many years. 
When the seignior's rights were taken from him, he 
shook off his obligations. No local authority, or coun- 
cil, or provincial, or parochial association had taken 
his place. The law obliged no man to take care of 
the poor in the rural districts ; the central government 
boldly assumed charge of them. 

Out of the proceeds of the taxes a sum was annu- 
ally set apart by the Council to be distributed by the 
intendant in parochial charities. The needy were in- 
structed to apply to him. In times of distress, it was 
he who distributed corn or rice. Annual Orders in 
Council directed that benevolent work-houses should 
be opened at places which the Orders took care to in- 
dicate ; at these, indigent peasants could always ob- 
tain work at moderate wages. It need hardly be ob- 
served that charity dispensed from such a distance 
must often have been blind and capricious, and al- 
ways inadequate. P ^ 

Not content with aiding the peasantry in times of 
distress, the central government undertook to teach 
them the art of growing rich, by giving them good 
advice, and occasionally by resorting to compulsory 
methods. With this view it distributed from time to 
time, by the hands of its intendants and sub-delegates, 
short pamphlets on agriculture, founded agricultural 



60 THE OLD EEGIME 

societies, promised prizes, kept up at great expense 
nurseries for the distribution of seeds and plants. 
Some reduction of the burdens which weighed on agri- 
culture would probably have proved more efficacious ; 
but this was never contemplated for a moment. 

At times the Council endeavored to force prosperity- 
en the people, whether they would or no. Innumer- 
able Orders compelled mechanics to make use of cer- 
tain specified machinery, and to manufacture certain 
specified articles ;^ and as the intendants were not al- 
ways able to see that their regulations were enforced, 
inspectors-general of industry were appointed to travel 
through the provinces and relieve them of the duty. 

Orders were passed prohibiting the cultivation of 
this or that agricultural product in lands which the 
Council considered unsuited to it. Others required 
that vines planted in what the Council regarded as bad 
soil should be uprooted. To such an extent had the 
government exchanged the duties of sovereign for those 
of guardian. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 61 



CHAPTER III. 

THAT WHAT IS NOW CALLED "THE GUARDIANSHIP OF THE STATE" 

(tutellb administrative) was an institution of the 
old regime. 

MUNICIPAL liberty outlived the feudal system in 
France. Long after the seigniors had ceased to 
administer the government of the rural districts, the cit- 
ies retained the right of self-government. As late as 
the close of the seventeenth century, several towns con- 
tinued to figure as little democratic republics, with 
magistrates freely elected by the people. Municipal 
life was here still active and public ; the citizens were 
proud of their rights and jealous of their independence.^. 
4 Elections were not generally abolished till 1692; 
after that date municipal business was transferred to 
offices i^nis en offices)^ that is to say, the king sold to \ 
certain citizens of each town the right of governing the 
others forever. 

This was destroying, not the freedom of the cities 
alone, but their prosperity also y for, though the sale 
of offices has often been followed by happy results in 
the case of judges, whose independence is the first 
condition of their usefiilness, it has never failed to be 
most disastrous in every administrative branch of gov- 
ernment, because there responsibility, subordination, 
and zeal are the conditions of efficiency. The govern- 
ment of the old monarchy made no mistake in the mat- 
ter ; it took good care to steer clear of the system it 



62 THE OLD EEGIME 

imposed on the towns— it never sold posts of intend- 
ant or sub-delegate. 

History may well note with scorn that this great 
revolution was accomplished without the least political 
design.* Louis XI. had curtailed municipal franchises 
"because their democratic tendency frightened him; 
Louis XIV. abolished, though he did not fear them, 
for he sold them back again to all the towns which 
could afford to purchase. His object, indeed, was less 
to destroy their liberties than to traffic in them. 
When he did abolish them, it was, so to speak, a mere 
financial experiment, and, singular to relate, the game 
was kept up for eighty years. Seven times during 
that period did the towns purchase the right of elect- 
ing their magistrates, and seven times was it taken 
away as soon as they had learned to appreciate its 
value. The motive of the measure was never varied 
or concealed. In the preamble to the edict of 1722, 
the king avowed that " the necessities of our finances 
compel "US to resort to the most effective remedy." 
The remedy was effective enough, but it was ruinous 
to those upon whom this new impost was laid. "I 
am struck," says an intendant to the comptroller-gen- 
eral in 1764, " with the enormous aggregate of the 
sums that have been paid from time to time for the 
redemption of municipal offices. Had these sums been 
laid out in works of utility in each city, the citizens 
would have been great gainers ; as it is, the offices 
have only been a burden." I am at a loss to find an- 
other feature as shameful as this in the whole range of 
the old regime. 

It seems difficult to tell precisely how towns were 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 63 

governed in tlie eighteenth century ; for not only did 
the source of municipal power change continually, in 
the manner just described, but each city had preserved 
some shreds of its old constitution and its peculiar lo- 
cal customs. No two cities in France were, perhaps, 
alike in every respect, though the contrasts between 
them are deceptive, and conceal a general similarity. 

In 1764, the Council undertook to make a general 
law for the government of cities. It obtained from its 
intendants reports on the municipal organization of 
each town within their province. I have discovered 
a portion of these reports, and a perusal has complete- 
ly satisfied me that municipal matters were managed 
very similarly in all. There are superficial and appar- 
ent diversities ; substantially the plan was the same 
every where. 

In most cases, cities were governed by two assem- 
blies. This is true of all the large cities, and of most 
of the small ones. 

The first assembly was composed of municipal of- 
ficers, whose number varied in different localities. This 
was the executive of the commune, the city corpora- 
tion' (cot;^^ de ville), as it used to be called. When 
the city had obtained or purchased from the king its 
municipal franchise, members of this assembly were 
elected for a fixed term. When the king succeeded 
in selling the municipal offices (which did not always 
happen, for this kind of merchandise was cheapened 
by each submission of the municipal to the central au- 
thority), they had a life -interest in the posts they 
bought. In neither case did the municipal officers re- 
ceive a salary : in both they enjoyed privileges and 



64 THE OLD REGIME 

exemptions from taxes. All were equal in rank ; they 
discharged their functions collectively. No magistrate 
was charged with any particular supervision, authority, 
or responsibility. The mayor presided over the cor- 
poration, but did not administer the government of the 
city. 

The second assembly, known as the "general as- 
sembly," elected the corporation (wherever elections 
were still held), and participated in the chief affairs of 
the city. 

In the fifteenth century, the general assembly con- 
sisted of the whole population. One of the reports 
mentioned above observed that this usage was " in ac- 
cordance with the popular sympathies of our forefa- 
thers." Municipal officers were chosen by the whole 
people. The people were consulted from time to time, 
and to them account was rendered by outgoing officials. 
This custom is still occasionally met with at the close 
of the seventeenth century. 

In the eighteenth century the people no longer con- 
stituted the general assembly. That body was almost 
invariably representative. But it must be carefully 
borne in mind that it was, in no single city, elected by 
the people generally, or imbued with a popular spirit. 
It was invariably composed of notables^ some of whom 
were entitled to seats in virtue of their individual sta- 
tion, while others were delegates from guilds and com- 
panies, and were instructed as to their course by their 
constituents. 

With the advance of the century, the number of 
notables ex officio increases in these assemblies, while 
the deputies from industrial associations faU off, or dis- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 65 

appear entirely. But deputies from guilds are still 
present ; that is to say, mechanics are excluded to make 
room for burghers. But the people are not so easily 
duped by sham liberties as many imagine ; they cease 
to take an interest in public affairs, and live at home 
as unconcernedly as if they were foreigners. In vain 
do the magistrates endeavor to revive that patriotism 
which did such wonders in the Middle Age ; no one 
listens to them. No one takes the least thought for 
the most momentous interests of the city. The polls — 
deceitful relic of departed liberty — are there still, and 
the magistrates would be glad if people would vote ; 
but they resolutely abstain. History teems with simi- 
lar sights. Very few monarchs, from Augustus to our 
day, have failed to keep up the outward forms of free- 
dom while they destroyed its substance, in the hope 
that they might combine the moral power of public ap- 
proval with the peculiar conveniences of despotism. 
But the experiment has usually failed, and it has soon 
been found impossible to maintain a deceitful sem- 
blance of that which really has no existence. 

In the eighteenth century, then, municipal govern- 
ment in cities had universally degenerated into oli- 
garchy. A few families controlled the public affairs 
in favor of private interests, without the knowledge of 
or any responsibility to the public. The disease per- 
vaded every municipal organization in France. It is 
perceived by all the intendants, but the only remedy 
they can suggest is the still farther subordination of 
local authorities to the central government. 

They were already under pretty extensive subjec- 
tion. Not only did the Council modify city govern- 



66 THE OLD EEGIME 

ments generally, from time to time, ^ but not unfrequent- 
ly the intendants proposed for particular cities special 
laws, which the Council passed without preliminary in- 
quiry, and often without the knowledge of the people ; 
and these laws went into effect without the formality 
of registration. " This measure," said the inhabitants 
of a city at which such an Order had been leveled, "has 
astonished all classes ; nothing of the kind was ex- 
pected." 

Cities were prohibited from establishing town-dues, 
or levying taxes, or hypothecating, selling, leasing, or 
administering their property, or going to law, or em- 
ploying their surplus funds without an order in Coun- 
cil first rendered on the report of the intendant."^ All 
public works in cities were executed according to plans 
and specifications approved by an order in Council. 
Contracts were adjudged by the intendant or his sub- 
delegates ; the state engineer usually exercised a gen- 
eral superintendence over all. Those who imagine that 
all we see in France is new will not read this without 
surprise. 

But the Council had even a larger share of the di- 
rection of city affairs than might be inferred from these 
rules. Its power was, in fact, greater than the law al- 
lowed. 

I find, in a circular addressed to intendants by the 
comptroller-general about the middle of last century, 
the following language : ' ' You will pay particular atten- 
tion to the proceedings of municipal assemblies. You 
will require a full report of all their proceedings and 
debates, and transmit the same to me with your ob- 
servations thereon." 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 67 

The correspondence "between the intendants and 
their sub-delegates shows that the government had a 
hand m the management of all the cities in the king- 
dom, great and small. It was consulted on all sub- 
jects, and gave decided opinions on all ; it even regu- 
lated festivals. It was the government which gave or- 
ders for public rejoicing, fireworks, and illuminations. 
I find it mentioned that an intendant once fined some 
members of the burgher guard twenty livt'es for absent- 
ing themselves from the Te Deitm, 

Municipal officers were impressed with a suitable 
consciousness of their nonentity. Some of them wrote 
their intendant, "We pray you most humbly, mon- 
seigneur, to grant us your good will and protection. 
We shall try to prove ourselves worthy of it by our 
submission to the orders of your highness." Others, 
who style themselves grandly " city peers," write to 
say that they "have never resisted your wiU, mon- 
seigneur." 

It was thus that the burghers were being prepared 
for government, and the people for liberty. 

If this close subjection of the cities had but pre- 
served their financial standing ! But it did nothing of 
the kind. It is said that, were it not for centraliza- 
tion, our cities would ruin themselves. How this may 
be, I knpw not ; but it is quite certain that, in the 
eighteenth century, centralization did not save cities 
from ruin. The financial history of the period is full 
of city troubles."^ 

Let us pass from cities to villages. We shall find 
new authorities, new forms, but the same dependence. 

I have discovered many indications that, in the Mid- 



68 THE OLD REGIME 

die Ages, the people of villages formed communities 
apart from the seigniors. The seigniors used them, 
superintended, and governed them ; hut they owned 
property exclusively, elected their rulers, and admin- 
istered their government on democratic principles. 

This old parochial system may be traced through all 
the nations which were once organized on a feudal ba- 
sis, even to the dependencies to which they transport- 
ed their decaying laws. It is easily discernible in 
England. Sixty years ago it was in full vigor in Prus- 
sia, as the code of Frederick the Great is there to 
prove. Some vestiges of it still lingered in France in 
the eighteenth century. 

I remember that the first time I examined the ar- 
chives of an intendant's office, in order to discover what 
a parish really was under the old regime, I was quite 
struck with the discovery, in that poor enslaved com- 
munity, of several features which I had noticed in the 
rural districts of America, and erroneously considered 
as peculiarities of New World institutions. Both com- 
munities were governed by functionaries acting inde- 
pendently of each other, and under the direction of the 
community at large ; in neither was there a permanent 
representative body, or municipal assembly proper. 
In both, from time to time, the people at large met to 
elect magistrates, and transact important business. 
They resembled each other, in fact, as closely as a liv- 
ing body resembles a corpse. Nor is this a matter of 
surprise, for the two systems, different as their des- 
tinies were, had the same origin. 

When the rural parish of the Middle Ages was re- 
moved beyond the reach of the feudal system and left 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 69 

uncontrolled, it became the New England township. 
When it was cut loose from the seignior, but crushed 
in the close grasp of the state in France, it became 
what remains to be described. 

In the eighteenth century parochial officers diifered 
in number and title in the several provinces. Old rec- 
ords show that when the parishes were in full vigor, 
the number of these officers was greater than when the 
stream of parochial life became sluggish. In the 
eighteenth centur j we find but two in most parishes : 
the collector, and another officer usually known as the 
syndic. Generally speaking, these officials were elect- 
ed, really or nominally, but they served far more as 
instruments of the state than as agents of the commu- 
nity. Collectors levied the taille under the orders of 
the intendant. Syndics, receiving orders from day to 
day from the sub-delegates, acted as their deputies in 
all matters bearing on public order or government ; 
such, for instance, as militia business, state works, and 
the execution of general laws. 

It has already been observed that the seignior had 
no part in these details of government. He neither 
superintended nor assisted the officials. His real pow- 
er gone, he despised contrivances used to keep up its 
semblance, and his pride alone forbade him to take 
any share in their establishment. Though he had 
ceased to govern, his residence in the parish and his 
privileges precluded the formation of a sound parochial 
system in the stead of that in which he had figured. 
Such a personage, so isolated in his independence and 
his privileges, could not but weaken or militate against 
the authority of law. 



70 THE OLD .EEGIBIE 

His presence drove to tlie cities all persons of 
means and information, as I shall have occasion to 
show hereafter. Around him lived a herd of rough, 
ignorant peasants, quite incapable of administering 
their collective business. It was Turgot who de- 
scribed a parish as "a collection of huts not more 
passive than their tenants." 

The records of the eighteenth century abound with 
complaints of the inefficiency, the carelessness, and the 
ignorance of parochial collectors and syndics. Every 
body deplores the fact — ministers, intendants, sub-del- 
egates, even men of rank, but nobody thinks of look- 
ing for its true cause. 

Until the Kevolution the government of rural par- 
ishes in France preserved some traces of that demo- 
cratic aspect which characterized it during the Middle 
Ages. When municipal officers were to be elected, or 
public affairs discussed, the village bell summoned the 
peasantry, poor and rich alike, to the church door. 
There was no regular debate followed by a vote, but 
all were free to express their views, and a notary, offi- 
ciating in the open air, noted, in a formal report, the 
substance of what was said. 

The contrast between these empty semblances of 
liberty and the real impotence which they concealed 
furnishes a slight indication of the ease with which 
the most absolute government may adopt some of the 
forms of a radical democracy, and aggravate oppres- 
sion by placing the oppressed under the ridiculous im- 
putation of not being aware of their real state. The 
democratic parish meeting was free to express its wish- 
es, but it was as powerless to enforce them as the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 71 

municipal councils of cities ; nor could it utter a word 
till its mouth had been opened by authority. No 
meeting could be convened until permission had been 
obtained in express terms from the intendant: this 
granted, the villagers, who called things by their right 
names, met "by his good will and pleasure." No 
meeting, however unanimous, could impose a tax, or 
sell or buy, or lease, or go to law, without permission 
from the Royal Council. The church which a storm 
had unroofed, or the presbytery wall which was fall- 
ing to pieces, could not be repaired without a decree 
of Council. This rule applied with equal force to all 
parishes, however distant from the capital. I have 
seen a petition firom a parish to the council praying 
to be allowed to spend twenty-five livres. 

In general, 'the parishioners were still entitled to 
elect magistrates by universal suffrage ; but the in- 
tendant frequently took pains to recommend a candi- 
date, who never failed to obtain the votes of the small 
electoral body. Again, he would occasionally declare 
of his own authority that an election just held was 
null and void, would appoint a collector and syndic, 
and temporarily disfranchise the com'munity. Of this 
course I have noticed a thousand examples. 

No more wretched station than that of these pa- 
rochial functionaries can be conceived. They were 
subject to the whim of the lowest agent of the central 
government, the sub-delegate. He would fine or im- 
prison them, and they could lay no claim to the usual 
guarantees of the subject against arbitrary oppression. 
An intendant wrote in 1750, "I have imprisoned a 
few of the principal grumblers, and made the commu- 



72 THE OLD REGIME 

nity pay the expense of sending for the police. By 
these measures I have checkmated them without dif- 
ficulty." Naturally enough, under these circumstan- 
ces, parochial office, instead of being an honor, became 
a burden from Vhich all sought to escape. 

Yet still, these last traces of the old parochial sys- 
tem were dear to the peasant's heart. To this very 
day that system is the only branch of government 
which he thoroughly understands and cares for. Men 
who cheerfully see the whole nation submit to a mas- 
ter, rebel at the bare idea of not being consulted in the 
government of their village. So pregnant with weight 
are hollow forms ! 

The remarks I have made upon cities and villages 
apply also to almost every corporate body which had 
a separate existence and corporate property. 

Under the old regime, as in our own day, neither 
city, nor borough, nor village, nor hamlet, however 
small, nor hospital, nor church, nor convent,'^ nor col- 
lege, could exercise a free will in its private aifairs, or 
administer its property as it thought best. Then, as 
now, the administration was the guardian of the whole 
French people; insolence had not yet invented the 
name, but the thing was abeady in existence. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 73 



CHAPTER IV. 

THAT ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNALS (lA JUSTICE ADMINISTRA- 
TIVE) AKD OFFICIAL IKKESPONSIBILITY(gARANTIE DES FONC- 
TIONNAIKES) AVERE INSTITUTIONS OF THE OLD REGIME. 

IN no country in Europe were the courts more inde- 
pendent of the government than in France ; nor 
was there any in which more abnormal tribunals ex- 
isted. The one involved a necessity for the other. 
Judges whose position was beyond the king's reach, 
whom he could neither dismiss, nor displace, nor pro- 
mote, and over whom he had no hold either by ambi- 
tion or by fear, soon proved inconvenient. That led 
to the denial of their jurisdiction over cases to which 
the administration was a party, and to the establish- 
ment of another class of courts, less independent, which 
presented to the subject's eye a semblance of justice, 
without involving, for the monarch, any risk of its 
reality. 

In countries like Germany, where the judges were 
never as independent of the government as they were 
in France at this time, no such precaution was ever 
taken, and no administrative tribunals ever established. 
The monarch held the common courts in such subjec- 
tion that he did not need extraordinary ones. 

Very few of the royal edicts and declarations, or of 
the Orders in Council, issued during the last century 
of the old monarchy, were unprovided with a clause 
stating that all disputes that might arise, and lawsuits 

D 



74 THE OLD REGIME 

that might grow out of them, must be referred to the 
intendants and to the Council. The ordinary form of 
words was, "His majesty ordains that all disputes 
which may arise concerning the execution of the pres- 
ent decree, its accessories and corollaries, shall he tried 
"before the intendant, and decided Iby him, subject to 
appeal to the Council. We forbid our courts and tri- 
bunals to take cognizance of any such disputes." 

In cases arising out of laws or old customs which 
made no similar provision, the Council constantly in- 
tervened by process of evocation, and took the suit out 
of the hands of the common judges to bring it before 
itself. The Council registers are full of such decrees 
of evocation. Frequently they gave to the practice the 
force of theory. A maxim, not of law, took root in the 
public mind to the effect that suits, in which state in- 
terests were involved, or which turned on the interpret- 
ation of a law, were not within the jurisdiction of or- 
dinary courts, and that these latter were restricted to 
the decision of cases between private individuals. We 
have embodied this idea in a set form, but its sub- 
stance belongs to the old regime. 

In those days, the intendant and Council were the 
only court that could try cases growing out of ques- 
tions of taxation. They alone were competent to de- 
cide suits concerning common carriers and passenger 
vehicles, public highways, canals, river navigation, and 
generally all matters in which the public interest was 
concerned. 

Nothing was left undone by the intendants to ex- 
tend their jurisdiction. Representations to the comp- 
troller-general, and sharp hints to the Council, were in- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 75 

cessant. One of the reasons assigned by a magistrate 
of this rank for issuing a writ of evocation is worth 
preserving. " Ordinary judges," says he, "are bound 
by rule to repress illegal acts ; but the Council can al- 
ways overstep rules for a salutary purpose." 

This principle often led intendants and Council to 
assume jurisdiction over cases whose connection with 
the administration was so slight as to be invisible, and 
even over cases which had obviously no connection 
with it at all. A gentleman went to law with his neigh- 
bor. Dissatisfied with the tone of the court, he begged 
the Council to evoke the case. The intendant, to whom 
it was referred, reported that, " though the interests in- 
volved were wholly of a private nature, his majesty 
could always, if he chose, take cognizance of all classes 
of suits, without rendering account of his motives to 
any one." 

Individuals arrested for riot were usually tried on 
evocation before the intendant or the Provost of Police 
{j>rev6t de la marechaussee). In times of scarcity, 
evocations of this kind were common, and the intend- 
ants appointed several "graduates" to assist them in 
their duties. They formed a sort of prefect's council, 
with criminal jurisdiction. I have seen sentences ren- 
dered by these bodies condemning culprits to the gal- 
leys and to the scaffold. At the close of the seven- 
teenth century, criminal jurisdiction was still frequent- 
ly exercised by intendants. 

Modem legists assure us that we have made great 
progress in administrative law since the Revolution. 
They tell us that "before that event the powers of the 
judiciary and those of the administration were inter- 



76 THE OLD KEOIME 

mingled and confused, but that since then they have 
been severed, and a line drawn between them." A right 
appreciation of the progress here mentioned can only 
be formed when it is well borne in mind that if the ju- 
diciary under the old regime occasionally overstepped 
its natural sphere, it never filled the whole of that 
sphere. Both of these facts must be remembered, or 
a false and incomplete view will be taken of the sub- 
ject. True, the courts were allowed to travel out of 
their sphere to make laws on certain subjects for the 
government of the public ; but, on the other hand, 
they were denied cognizance of legitimate lawsuits, 
and thus excluded from a part of their proper domain. 
We have stripped the courts of the right of intruding 
into the administration of government, which they very 
im^properly possessed under the old regime, but we have 
continued to suffer the government to intrude into the 
courts of law ; yet it is even more dangerous for the 
government than for the judiciary to transcend its 
scope ; for the interference of the latter in the admin- 
istration of government only injures the public busi- 
ness, whereas the interference of government in the 
administration of justice tends to deprave the public 
mind, and to render men servile and revolutionary at 
one and the same time. 

In one of the nine or ten constitutions which have 
been established in France within the last sixty years, 
and designed to last forever, an article was inserted de- 
claring that no government official could be prosecuted 
before the common courts until permission had been 
obtained from the executive. The idea seemed so 
happy that, when the constitution was destroyed, the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 77 

article in question was rescued from destruction, and 
has ever since "been carefully sheltered from revolution. 
Officials commonly allude to the privilege secured to 
them by this article as one of the great triumphs of 
1789, "but here again they are in error. The old mon- 
archy was quite as solicitous as more modern govern- 
ments to protect its servants from responsibility to the 
courts, like mere citizens. Between the two eras the 
only substantial difference is this : before the Revolu- 
tion government could not come to the rescue of its 
agents without having recourse to arbitrary and illegal 
measures ; since then it has been legally authorized 
to let them violate the law. 

When, under the old regime, an agent of the central 
government was prosecuted before any of the ordinary 
courts, an Order in Council usually forbade the judges 
to proceed with the case, and referred it to commis- 
sioners named in the order. The ground for the pro- 
ceeding was, according to the opinion of a councilor 
of that day, because the ordinary judges were sure to 
be biased against a government official, and thus the 
king's government was likely to be brought into con- 
tempt. Cases of evocation were not rare occurrences. 
They took place daily, and the lowest officials were as 
often protected by them as the highest. The most 
slender connection with government secured immu- 
nity from all authorities, save the Council only. A 
farmer liable to corvees prosecuted an overseer of the 
Bridge and Road department for having maltreated 
him. The Council evoked the case. The chief en- 
gineer reported confidentially to the intendant that 
" the overseer was no doubt much to blame, but that 



78 THE OLD EEGIME 

was no reason wliy the case should he allowed to take 
its course. It is of the highest importance to the de- 
partment of Bridges and Koads that the ordinary courts 
should not take cognizance of complaints against the 
overseers made by workmen "bound to service, for if 
they did, the works would soon be brought to a stand 
by the lawsuits which the public dislike of these offi- 
cials would excite." 

On another occasion, a state contractor had taken 
from a neighboring field materials which he required, 
and used them. The intendant himself wrote to the 
comptroller-general, "I can not lay sufficient stress on 
the injury the government would incur if contractors 
were left at the mercy of the ordinary courts, for their 
principles are wholly at variance with those by which 
the administration is guided." 

A century has elapsed since these lines were writ- 
ten, and yet these public officers would pass for con- 
temporaries of our own. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 79 



CHAPTEE V. 

HOW CENTRALIZATION CSEPT IN AMONG THE OLD AUTHORITIES, AND 
SUPPLANTED WITHOUT DESTROYING THEM. 

LET US briefly recapitulate the points established 
in the three preceding chapters. 
-^ A single body, placed in the centre of the kingdom, 
administering government throughout the country ; a 
single minister managing nearly all the business of the 
interior ; a single agent directing the details in each 
province ; no secondary administrative bodies, or au- 
thorities competent to act without permission : special 
tribunals to hear cases in which government is con- 
cerned, and shield its agents.^ What is this but the 
same centralization with which we are acquainted? 
As compared with ours, its forms are less shai*ply 
marked, its mode of action less regular, its existence 
less tranquil ; but the system is the same. Nothing 
has been added, nothing taken away from the old plan ; 
when the surrounding edifices were pulled down, it 
stood precisely as we see it. 

Frequent imitations of the institutions I have just 
described have since made their appearance in various 
places, y but they were then peculiar to France. We 
shall see presently how gTeat an influence they exer- 
cised over the French Revolution and its sequel. 

But how did these modern institutions find place 
among the ruins of the old feudal society ? 

By patient, adroit, persevering labor, rather than by 



HO. THE OLD EEGIME 

violent arbitrary effort. At the outbreak of the Revo- 
lution, the old administrative system of France was 
still standing, but a new system had been built up in- 
side it. 

There is no reason for believing that this difficult 
exploit was the fruit of a deep scheme laid by the old 
government. On the contrary, it appears to have been 
accomplished almost unconsciously, instinct teaching 
the government and its various agents to acquire as 
much control as possible. The old officials were left 
in possession of their titles and their honors, but strip- 
ped of their power. They were led, not driven out of 
their domain. The idleness of one, the selfishness of 
another, the vices of all, were skillfully turned to ac- 
count. No attempt was made to convert them, but 
one and aU were quietly replaced by the intendant, 
whose name had never even been heard at tlie time 
they were born. 

The only obstacle in the way of the change was in 
the judiciary department ; but there, as elsewhere, the 
government had contrived to seize the substance, leav- 
ing its rivals the outward show of power. It did not 
exclude the Parliaments from administrative business, 
but it gradually absorbed their duties till there was 
nothing for them to do.^ On some few rare occasions, 
as, for example, in times of scarcity, when popular ex- 
citements tempted the ambition of magistrates, it al- 
lowed the Parliaments to exercise administrative au- 
thority for a brief interval, and let them make a noise 
which has often found an echo in history ; but it soon 
silently resumed its fvmctions, and discreetly assumed 
sole control of men and things. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 81 

A close study of the stmggles of the Parliaments 
against the power of the king will lead to the discov- 
ery that they were invariably on political issues, and 
never on points of administration. Quarrels usually 
began on the creation of new taxes — that is to say, 
the belligerents contended for legislative authority, to 
which neither had any claim, and not for administrative 
power. 

This becomes more apparent as we approach the 
revolutionary era. As the people's feelings become in- 
flamed, the Parliament mixes more in politics ; and 
simultaneously, the central government and its agents, 
with skill enhanced by experience, usurp more admin- 
istrative power. The Parliament grows daily less like 
an administration, and more like a tribune. 

Day after day, the central government conquers new 
fields of action into which these bodies can not follow 
it. Novelties arise, pregnant with cases for which no 
precedents can be found in parliamentary routine : so- 
ciety, in a fever of activity, creates new demands, which 
the government alone can satisfy, and each of which 
swells its authority ; for the sphere of all other admin- 
istrative bodies is defined and fixed ; that of the gov- 
ernment alone is movable, and spreads with the exten- 
sion of civilization. 

Impending revolution unsettles the mind of the 
French, and suggests a host of new ideas which the 
central government alone can realize : it is developed 
before it perishes. Like every thing else, it is brought 
to perfection, as is singularly proved by its archives. 
There is no resemblance between the comptroller-gen- 
eral and the intendant of 1780 and the like officials in 
D2 



82 ' THE OLD REGIME *- 

1740 : the system lias been transformed. The agents 
are the same, but their spirit is different. Time, while 
it extends and exercises the power of the government, 
imparts to it new skill and regularity. Its latest usur- 
pations are marked by unusual forbearance; it rules 
more imperatively, but it is far less oppressive. 

This great institution of the monarchy was thrown 
down by the first blow of the Ee volution : it was raised 
anew in 1800. It is not true that the principles of 
government which were then adopted were those of 
1789, as so many persons have asserted ; they were 
those of the old monarchy, which were restored, and 
have remained in force ever since. 

If it be asked how this portion of the old regime 
could be bodily transplanted into and incorporated with 
the new social system, I reply that centralization was 
not abolished by the Eevolution, because it was, in 
fact, its preliminary and precursor ; and I may add, 
that when a nation abolishes aristocracy^ centralization 
follows as a matter of course. It is much harder to 
prevent its establishment than to hasten it. Every 
thing tends toward unity of power, and it requires no 
small contrivance to maintain divisions of authority. 

It was natural, then, that the democratic Revolu- 
tion, while it destroyed so many of the institutions of 
the old regime, should retain this one. Nor was cen- 
tralization so out of place in the social order created 
by the Revolution that it could not easily be mistaken 
for one of its fruits. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 83 



CHAPTER VI. 

OF OFFICIAL MANNERS AND CUST03IS UNDER THE OLD REGIME, 

IT is impossible to read the correspondence of intend- 
ants of tlie old regime with their superiors without 
being struck with the resemblance between the officials 
of that daj and those of our own. Like institutions 
produced like men ; across the Revolutionary gulf 
which divides them thej appear hand in hand. As 
much may be said of the people governed. Never 
was the power of legislation to shape men's minds 
more powerfully illustrated. 

Already in those days ministers were seized with a 
mania for seeing with their own eyes the details of 
every thing, and managing every thing at Paris. The 
mania increased with time and practice. Toward the 
close of the eighteenth century, a work-house could not 
be established in any corner of a distant province but 
the comptroller must insist on overseeing its expendi- 
ture, providing it with rules, choosing its site. If a 
poor-house were founded, the same minister requu-ed 
to know the names of all paupers relieved, their exits 
and their entrances. Before the middle of the century, 
in 1733, M. D'Argenson wrote, " Ministers are over- 
loaded with business details. Every tiling is done by 
them and through them, and if their information be 
not coextensive with their power, they are forced to 
let their clerks act as they please, and become the real 
masters of the country." 



84 THE OLD REGIME 

Comptrollers-general were not content with business 
reports ; they insisted on minute information about in- 
dividuals. Intendants expected the same from their 
sub-delegates, and rarely failed to repeat, word for word, 
in their reports, what these subordinates stated in 
theirs, as though they were stating matters within 
their own knowledge. 

A very extensive machinery was requisite before the 
government could know every thing and manage every 
thing at Paris. The amount of documents filed was 
enormous, and the slowness with which public busi- 
ness was transacted such that I have been unable to 
discover any case in which a village obtained permis- 
sion to raise its church steeple or repair its presbytery 
in less than a year. Generally speaking, two or three 
years elapsed before such petitions were granted. 

The Council itself confessed, in a decree of 29th 
March, 1773, that " administrative forms cause infinite 
delays, and frequently give rise to very just com- 
plaints ; yet these forms are all necessary." 

I was under the impression that a taste for statistics 
was peculiar to the government officials of our own 
day : this I find to be an error. Toward the close of 
the old regime, printed forms were constantly sent to 
the intendant, who sent them on to his sub-delegates, 
who sent them on to the syndics, who filled the blanks. 
The subjects on which the comptroller thus sought in- 
formation were the character of lands and of their cul- 
tivation, the kind and quantity of produce raised, the 
number of cattle, and the customs of the people. In- 
formation thus obtained was fully as minute and as 
reliable as that which sub-prefects and mayors furnish 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 85 

in our own day. Sub-delegates seem, from these tab- 
ular reports, to have formed in general an unfavora- 
ble judgment upon the character of the people. They 
reiterate the opinion that ''the peasant is naturally 
idle, and would not work if he could live without it." 
That economical doctrine appears to be very generally 
received among these government officials. 

Nor is the official style of the two periods less strik- 
ingly similar. Official writers then, as now, affected a 
colorless, smooth, vague, diffuse style ; each writer 
merged his identity in the general mediocrity of the 
body to which he belonged. Kead a prefect, you have 
read an intendant. 

When, toward the close of the century, the peculi- 
arities of Diderot and Eousseau spread into the lan- 
guage of the day, the affected sensibility of these 
writers was adopted by the officials and even by state 
financiers. Official style, usually dry enough, then 
became unctuous and even tender. A sub-delegate 
complained to the intendant of Paris that his "feelings 
were so sensitive that he could not discharge the du- 
ties of his office without moments of poignant grief." 

The government distributed, as it still does, certain 
sums in charity in each parish, on condition that the 
parishioners raised something on their side for the same 
purpose. When the sum raised by them was suffi- 
cient, the comptroller made a memorandum on the 
margin of the scheme of distribution, *' Good — express 
satisfaction ;" but when it was considerable, he wrote, 
" Good — express satisfaction and sensibility." 
"^ Government officials, none of whom were of noble 
•descent, already formed a class apart, with feelings, 



SQ THE OLD REGIME 

traditions, virtues,, and notions of honor and dignity- 
all their own. Thej constituted the aristocracy of 
the new society, ready to take their rank as soon as 
the Eevolution had cleared the way.y 

A marked characteristic of the French government, 
even in those days, was the hatred it bore to every 
one, whether noble or not, who presumed to meddle 
with public affairs without its knowledge. It took 
fright at the organization of the least public body 
which ventured to exist without permission. It was 
disturbed by the formation of any free society. It 
could brook no association but such as it had arbitrarily 
formed, and over which it presided. Even manufac- 
turing companies displeased it. In a word,' it objected 
to people looking after their own concerns, and pre- 
ferred general inertia to rivalry. Still, as the French 
could not exist without some sort of liberty, they were 
permitted to discuss as freely as they chose all sorts 
of general and abstract theories on religion, philoso- 
phy, morals, and even politics. Provided its agents 
were not meddled with, the government had no objec- 
tion to attacks on the fundamental principles of socie- 
ty, and even on the existence of a God. Officials fan- 
cied these were no concerns of theirs. 

Though the newspapers of those days, or, as they 
were usually called, the gazettes, contained more poet- 
ry than politics, they were none the less viewed with 
a jealous eye by the government. Careless about 
books, it was very strict with regard to journals, -and 
being unable to suppress them, it undertook to make 
them a government monopoly./ A circular, dated 1761, 
which I have seen, announced to all the intendants in 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 87 

the kingdom that the Gazette de France would be 
thereafter composed under the eye of the king (Louis 
XV.), "his majesty desiring to render it interesting 
and superior to all others. You will, therefore," con- 
tinues the circular, " have the goodness to let me have 
a report of all events of interest within your province, 
especially such as hear upon natural philosophy and 
natural history, together with other singular and strik- 
ing occurrences." To the circular was attached a 
prospectus of the Gazette^ informing the public that, 
though it appeared oftener and contained more matter 
than its rival, its subscription price would be consid- 
erably less. 

Armed with these documents, an intendant applied 
to his sub-delegates for information, but the latter re- 
plied that they had none to give. Then came a sec- 
ond letter from the minister, complaining bitterly of 
the dearth of news from the province in question, and 
winding up with, " His majesty commands me to say 
to you that it is his will that you give your serious 
attention to this affair, and issue the strictest orders 
to your subordinates." Under the pressure, the sub- 
delegates did their best. One reported that a salt- 
smuggler had been hanged, and had displayed great 
courage ; another, that a woman in his neighborhood 
had been delivered of three girls at one birth ; a third, 
that a terrible storm had taken place, but, happily, had 
done no mischief. A fourth declared that he had not 
been able, notwithstanding great exertions, to discover 
any news of interest, but that he took pleasure in sub- 
scribing personally to so useful a gazette, and would 
recommend all his neighbors to do the like. Still, 



88 THE OLD REGIME 

these remarkable efforts seem to have produced inade- 
quate results, for it appears from a fresh letter that 
" the king, who has graciously deigned to give his at- 
tention to the best means of perfecting the Gazette^ and 
wishes to secure for this journal the superiority and 
fame which it deserves, has expressed much dissatis- 
faction at the manner in which his desires have been 
seconded." ^ 

History, it is easily perceived, is a picture-gallery 
containing a host of copies and very few originals. 

It must be admitted, however, that the central gov- 
ernment of France never followed the example of those 
southern governments which seem to have sought to 
be despotic only in order to blight their realms. The 
former was always active, and often intelligently so. 
Its activity was often fruitless and even mischievous, 
however, because it essayed to achieve feats beyond 
its reach, and even impossibilities. 

It seldom undertook, or soon abandoned projects of 
useful reform which demanded perseverance and en-^ 
ergy, but it was incessantly engaged in altering the 
laws. Eepose was never known in its domain. New 
rules followed each other with such bewildering ra^ 
pidity that its agents never knew which to obey of the 
multifarious commands they received. Municipal offi- 
cers complained to the comptroller-general of the ex- 
treme instability of the minor laws. " The financial 
regulations alone," say they, " vary so constantly that 
it would require the whole time of a municipal officer, 
holding office for life, to acquire a knowledge of the 
new regulations as they appear from time to time." 

When the substance of the laws was allowed to re- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 89 

main the same, their execution was varied. Those who 
have not studied the actual working of the old regime 
in the official records it left behind can form no idea 
of the contempt into which the laws fall, even in the 
minds of their administrators, when there are no po- 
litical meetings or newspapers to check the capricious 
activity and set bounds to the arbitrary tendencies of 
government officials. 

Very few Orders in Council omitted to repeal former 
and frequently quite recent enactments, which, though 
quite regular, had never been carried into effect. No 
edict, or royal declaration, or registered letters patent 
was strictly carried out in practice. / The correspond- 
ence of the comptrollers-general and the intendants 
shows plainly that the government was constantly in 
the habit of tolerating exceptions to its rules. It rare- 
ly broke the law, but it daily bent it to either side, to 
suit particular cases or facilitate the transaction of 
business.' 

An intendant wrote to the minister, in reference to 
an application of a state contractor to be relieved from 
paying town dues, "It is certain that, according to the 
strict letter of the laws I have cited, no one can claim 
exemption from these dues, but all who are acquaint- 
ed with business are aware that these sweeping pro- 
visions, like the penalties they impose, though con- 
tained in most of the edicts, declarations, and decrees 
establishing taxes, were not intended to be literally 
construed, or to exclude exceptional cases." 

These words containnthe whole principle of the old 
regime. Strict rules, loosely enforced — such was its 
characteristic. 



90 THE OLD REGIME 

To attempt to form an opinion of the age from its 
laws would lead to the most ridiculous errors. A roy- 
al declaration of 1757 condemned to death aU writers 
or printers of works assailing religion or government. 
Booksellers in whose shops they were found, peddlers 
who hawked them, were liable to the same penalties. 
Was this the age of Saint Dominic ? No, it was ex- 
actly the period of Voltaire's reign. 

Complaints are heard that Frenchmen show con- 
tempt for law. Alas ! when could they have learned 
to respect it ? It may he broadly said that, among 
the men of the old regime, the place in the mind which 
should have been occupied by the idea of law was va- 
cant. Petitioners begged that established rules might 
be departed from in their case as seriously and as 
earnestly as if they had been insisting on the honest 
execution of the law ; nor were they ever referred to 
the law unless government intended to give them a 
rebuff. Custom, rather than volition, still inculcated 
submission to authority on the part of the people ; but 
whenever they did break loose, the least excitement 
gave rise to violent acts, which were themselves met, 
not by the law, but by violence on the other side, and 
arbitrary stretches of power. 

Though the central power had not acquired in the 
eighteenth century the strong and healthy constitution 
it has since possessed, it had, notwithstanding, so thor- 
oughly destroyed all intermediate authorities, and left 
so wide a vacant space between itself and the public, 
that it already appeared to be the mainspring of the 
social machine, the sole source of national life. 

Nothing proves this more thoroughly than the writ- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 91 

ings of its assailants. During the period of uneasiness 
which preceded the Eevolution, a host of schemes for 
new forms of society and government were brought to 
light. These schemes sought various ends, but the 
means by which they were to be reached were invari- 
ably identical. All the schemers wanted to use the 
central power for the destruction of the existing sys- 
tem, and the substitution of their new plan in its stead: 
that power alone seemed to them capable of accom- 
plishing so great a task. They all assumed that the 
rights and powers of the state ought to be unlimited, 
and that the only thing needed was to persuade it to 
use them aright. Mirabeau the father, whose aristo- 
cratic prejudices led him to denominate the intendants 
intruders, and to declare that if the government had 
the sole right of appointing magistrates, the courts of 
justice would soon be mere "bands of commission- 
ers," relied on the central power alone for the realiza- 
tion of his chimerical plans. 

Nor were these notions confined to books ; they per- 
vaded men's minds, gave a color to society and social 
habits, and were conspicuous in every transaction of 
every-day life. 

Nobody expected to succeed in any enterprise unless 
the state helped him. Farmers, who, as a class, are 
generally stubborn and indocile, were led to believe 
that the backwardness of agriculture was due to the 
lack of advice and aid from the government. A letter 
from one of them, somewhat revolutionary in tone, in- 
quired of the intendant " why the government did not 
appoint inspectors to travel once a year through the 
provinces, and examine the state of agriculture through- 



92 THE OLD REGIME 

out the kingdom ? Such officers would teach farmers 
what to plant, what to do with their cattle, how to 
fatten, raise, and sell them, and where to send them 
to market. They would, of course, be paid officials. 
Some honorary distinction should be conferred on suc- 
cessful agriculturists." 

Inspectors and honorary distinctions! These are 
the last encouragements a Suffi^lk farmer would have 
thought of expecting. 

The masses were quite satisfied that the government 
alone could preserve the public peace. The mounted 
police alone commanded the respect of the rich, and in- 
spired terror among the people. Both viewed that 
force rather as the incarnation of public order than as 
one of its chief instruments. The provincial assem- 
bly of Guienne observed that " every one has noticed 
how quickly the sight of a mounted policeman will 
subdue the most riotous mob." And every body want- 
ed, accordingly, to have a troop of them at his door.* 
Petitions to that effect overloaded the registers of the 
intendants : no one seemed to suspect that the pro- 
tector might be a master in disguise. 

Nothing astonished the exiles who fled to England 
so much as the absence of any such force there. Some 
express surprise, others contempt at the phenomenon. 
A man of some merit, but who had not been taught to 
expect such a contrast, exclaimed, "It is positively 
true that an Englishman congratulates himself on be- 
ing robbed, with the reflection that, at all events, there 
are no mounted police in his country. An English- 
man is sorry to see riots, but when rioters escape scot 
free into the bosom of society, he consoles himself with 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 93 

the remark that the law must Tbe observed to the let- 
ter, at whatever cost. These false notions, however, 
are not universally adopted. There are wise men who 
think differently, and their view must ultimately pre- 
vail." 

He never dreamed that these eccentricities of the 
English might possibly have some connection with 
their liberties. He accounted for them on scientific 
principles. "In countries where a damp climate and 
a want of elasticity in the air gives a gloomy cast to 
the character of the people, serious subjects are sure to 
be popular. Hence it is that the English are natural- 
ly inclined to busy themselves about their government, 
while the French are not." 

Government having assumed the place of Provi- 
dence, people naturally invoked its aid for their private 
wants. Heaps of petitions were received from persons 
who wanted their petty private ends served, always for 
the public good.^ The chests which contained them 
were, perhaps, the only spot where all classes of socie- 
ty under the old regime freely intermingled. Sad read- 
ing, this : farmers begging to be reimbursed the value 
of lost cattle or horses ; men in easy circumstances 
begging a loan to enable them to work their land to 
more advantage; manufacturers begging for monopo- 
lies to crush out competition; business men confiding 
their pecuniary embarrassments to the intendant, and 
begging for assistance or a loan. It would appear that 
the public funds were liable to be used in this way. 

Men of rank were not unfrequent applicants for fa- 
vors. They might be recognized by the lofty tone in 
which they begged. They came to solicit from the in- 



94 THE OLD REGIME 

tendant delays in wHcli to pay their share of the land- 
tax, which was their chief burden ; or they asked that 
it be remitted altogether. I have read a great num- 
ber of petitions of this kind from noblemen, some of 
very high degree ; the ground alleged is usually the 
inadequacy of the petitioner's income, or his pecuniary 
straits. Men of rank always addressed intendants 
simply "Sir ;" on these occasions they addressed him 
''''MonseigneuT^^^ as every body else did. 

Pride and poverty are often amusingly combined in 
these petitions. One reads as follows: "Your warm 
heart can never surely insist on the payment of a strict 
twentieth by a man of my rank, as you might with 
men of the common sort." 

In times of scarcity, which recurred frequently dur- 
ing the eighteenth century, the people of each province 
flew to the intendant, and seemed to expect food from 
him as a matter of course.^ The act was redeemed by 
wholesale denunciations of the government. All the 
sufferings of the people were laid to its charge ; it was 
loudly blamed for the, severity of the weather. 

Let no one again express surprise at the wonderful 
ease with which centralization was re-established in 
France at the beginning of this century. It had been 
overthrown by the men of 1789 ; but its foundations 
were deep in the minds of its very destroyers, and upon 
these it was rebuilt anew stronger than ever. 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 95 



CHAPTEE VII. 

now THE CAPITAL OF FRANCE HAD ACQUIRED MORE PREPONDER- 
ANCE OVER THE PROVINCES, AND USURPED MORE CONTROL OVER 
THE NATION, THAN ANT OTHER CAPITAL IN EUROPE. 

IT is not situation, or size, or wealth which makes 
some capital cities rule the countries in which they 
stand; that phenomenon is caused by the prevailing 
form of government. 

London, which is as j)Opulous as many a kingdom, 
has, up to this time, exercised no sovereign control 
over Great Britain. 

No citizen of the United States ever supposes that 
New York could decide the fate of the American Un- 
ion, nor does any citizen of the State of New York 
fancy that that city could even direct state affairs at 
will ; yet New York contains as many inhabitants to- 
day as Paris did when the Eevolution broke out. 

Moreover, Paris bore to the rest of the kingdom the 
same proportion, so far as population was concerned, 
during the religious wars as it did in 1789 ; yet it was 
powerless at the former period. At the time of the 
Fronde, Paris was nothing niore than the largest French 
city ; in 1789 it was France. 

In 1740 Montesquieu wrote to a friend, "France is 
nothing but Paris and a few distant provinces which 
Paris has not yet had time to swallow up." In 1750 
the Marquis de Mirabeau, a man of chimerical views, 
but occasionally profound in his way, said of Paris 



96 THE OLD REGUME 

without naming it, *' Capitals are necessities, but if the 
head grow too large, the body becomes apoplectic and 
wastes away. What will the consequence be if, by 
drawing all the talent of the kingdom to this metropo- 
lis, and leaving to the provincials no chance of reward 
or motive for ambition, the latter are placed in a sort 
of quasi dependence, and converted into an inferior 
class of citizens ?" He adds that this process is ef- 
fecting a silent revolution by depopulating the prov- 
inces of their notables, leading men, and men of ability. 

The foregoing chapters have explained pretty fully 
the causes of this phenomenon ; the reader's patience 
may be spared their repetition here. 

The Eevolution did not escape the notice of govern- 
ment, but it only viewed the fact in its bearing on the 
capital, whose rapid increase seemed to presage in- 
creased difficulties of administration. Numerous royal 
ordinances, especially in the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, endeavored to check its growth. The 
monarchy steadily concentrated in Paris all the nation- 
al life of France, and yet desired to see Paris remain 
small. People were forbidden to build new houses, or 
were bound to build them in- the most costly manner, 
in the worst localities. But each successive ordinance 
admitted that, notwithstanding its predecessors, Paris 
had increased steadily. Six times did Louis XIV. 
exert his omnipotent will to check the expansion of the 
city, but each effort was a failure ; the capital expand- 
ed in spite of decrees. Its power swelled even more 
rapidly than its volume, which was due less to its own 
exertions than to events beyond its walls. 

For, simultaneously with its extension, the local 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 97 

franchises of tlie rural districts were fading away, all 
symptoms of independent vigor were vanishing, pro- 
vincial characteristics were being effaced, the last flick- 
er of the old national life was dying out. Not that the 
nation was growing sluggish ; on the contrary, it nev- 
er knew a more active time ; hut the only mainspring 
of movement was at Paris. One illustration, chosen 
out of a thousand, may make this plainer. I find re- 
ports to the minister on the hook business, in which it 
is stated that, during the sixteenth and at the begin- 
ning of the seventeenth century, there were large print- 
ing-offices in many provincial cities, but that now 
there are no printers to be found, and no work to be 
done. Yet it is not to be questioned but there were 
far more books printed at the close of the eighteenth 
century than during the sixteenth. The secret is, sim- 
ply, that mind had ceased to radiate from any point but 
the centre ; Paris had swallowed up the provinces. 

This preliminary revolution was fully accomplished 
before the French Eevolution broke out. 

The famous traveler, Arthur Young, left Paris a few 
days after the assembling of the States-General, and 
before the capture of the Bastille ; he was struck with 
the contrast between city and country. In Paris, all 
was activity and noise ; political' pamphlets appeared 
in such quantities that ninety-two were counted in one 
week. " I never saw such a fever of publishing," said 
he, "even at London." Outside of Paris he could find 
nothing but inertia and silence ; no pamphlets, and but 
few journals. The provinces were roused and ready 
to niove, but not to take the initiative; when the people 
met, it was to hear the news firom Paris. Young ask- 

E 



98 THE OLD REGIME 

ed the people of each eity what they purposed doing. 
" Their answer was always the same, ' We are but a 
provincial city ; you must go and see what they are 
going to do at Paris.' These people," he adds, " dare 
not hold an opinion till they know how it is received 
at Paris." 

Surprise has heen expressed at the remarkable ease 
with which the Constituante assembly destroyed at a 
blow provinces in some cases older than the monarchy, 
and parceled out the kingdom into eighty -three dis- 
tinct sections, as if it had been virgin soil in the New 
World. Europe was not prepared for any such act, 
and viewed it with surprise and horror. " This is the 
first time," said Burke, "that men have so barbarous- 
ly torn their country to pieces." It did look as though 
they had torn living bodies, but in reality they had only 
dismembered corpses. 

At the very time that Paris was becoming all-power- 
ful, another noteworthy change was taking place with- 
in its borders. It had long been a city of trade, busi- 
ness, and pleasure ; it now became an industrial and 
manufacturing city. This change gave it a new and 
formidable character. 

It had long been inevitable. Even in the Middle 
Ages Paris had been the most industrious, as it was 
the largest city of the kingdom ; latterly, the distance 
between it and its rivals had increased. Arts and in- 
dustrial energy followed the government. As Paris 
became more and more the arbiter of taste, the only 
centre of power and of art, the focus of national activ- 
ity, the manufacturing life of the country gradually 
concentrated itself there. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 99 

Thougli I place, in general, but little reliance on the 
statistical tables of the old regime, I believe it may be 
safely asserted that during the sixty years which pre- 
ceded the French Eevolution, the number of workmen 
at Paris was more than doubled, though the whole pop- 
ulation of the city during the same period only increas- 
ed one third. 

Independently of these general causes, peculiar mo- 
tives attracted mechanics from all parts of France to 
Paris ; and when they came, they lived mostly togeth- 
er, and ultimately monopolized whole wards. The 
burdens laid on mechanics by the fiscal policy of the 
government were lighter at Paris than in the provinces ; 
nor was it so easy any where as there to obtain the 
freedom of a trade-company. Kesidents of the sub- 
urbs of Saint Antoine and of the Temple enjoyed pe- 
culiar privileges in this respect. Louis XVI. enlarged 
still further the prerogatives of the Saint Antoine sub- 
urb, in the design of collecting an immense number 
of operatives there, or, as that unfortunate monarch 
phrased it, "being desirous of showing a new mark of 
our favor to the workmen of the Saint Antoine suburb, 
and relieving them from burdens which are alike in- 
jurious to their interests and to the freedom of trade." 

Toward the period of the Eevolution the number of 
factories, manufactures, and blast-furnaces had become 
so great at Paris as to alarm the government. Indus- 
trial progress had aroused strange fears in the mind of 
officials. A decree of council in 1782 declares that 
"the king, fearing lest the rapid increase of factories 
should lead to so large a consumption of firewood as 
to deprive the city of its proper supply, prohibits the 



100 THE OLD REGIME 

establishment of new works of this kind within fifteen 
leagues of the capital." No one suspected the real 
danger to be apprehended from the agglomeration of 
workmen. 

It was thus that Paris became the mistress of France, 
and thus that the army that was to master Paris was 
mustered. 

It is generally admitted nowadays, I believe, that 
administrative centralization and the omnipotence of 
Paris have had much to do with the fall of the various 
governments we have had during the last forty years. 
I shall have but little difficulty in proving that the 
ruin of the old monarchy was in a great measure due 
to the same causes, and that they exercised no small 
influence in bringing about that revolution which was 
the parent of all the others. 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 101 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THAT FRENCHMEN HAD GRO^VN MORE LIKE EACH OTHER THAN ANT 
OTHER PEOPLE. 

THE careful student of the old regime in France 
soon meets with two apparently contradictory- 
facts. 

It appears that every body in the upper and middle 
classes of society, the only classes which are heard of, 
is exactly like his neighbor. 

At the same time, this homogeneous mass is split 
into an immense multitude of small bodies, and each 
body contains an exclusive set, which takes no concern 
for any interests but its own. 

When I think of these infinite subdivisions, and 
the want of union and sympathy they must have pro- 
duced, I begin to understand how a great revolution 
could overthrow such a society, from top to bottom, in 
a moment. The shock must have leveled, at a blow, 
all party walls, and left behind it the most compact 
and homogeneous social body ever seen in the world. 

I have already described how provincial peculiari- 
ties had gradually worn off. That change tended pow- 
erfully to assimilate the French people. National uni- 
ty loomed through the surviving distinctions of rank. 
The laws were uniform. As the eighteenth century 
advanced, the number of edicts, declarations, and Or- 
ders in Council, which applied the same rules with 
equal force to all parts of the kingdom, became larger 



102 THE OLD REGIME 

and larger. Subjects as well as rulers entertained 
ideas of a general uniform system of legislation that 
should bear equally on all : this was a prominent fea- 
ture in all the schemes of reform which saw the light 
during the thirty years preceding the devolution. Two 
centuries before, the basis for such schemes may be said 
to have been wanting. 

Not only had all the provinces grown like each oth- 
er, but the men also. A marked resemblance began 
to exist between men of all ranks and stations ; or, at 
all events, among those who were not comprised in the 
class known as "the people." 

This is clearly shown in the cahiers of the various 
classes presented in 1789. Their authors had evident- 
ly different interests to serve, but in all other respects 
they were alike. 

At former meetings of the States-General, on the con- 
•trary, the interests of the middle classes were common 
to the nobility, their aims were the same, their inter- 
course free from antagonism ; but they seemed to be 
two distinct races. 

Time had maintained and occasionally aggravated 
the privileges which kept them apart, but in all other 
respects it had singularly labored to produce a resem- 
blance between them. 

The impoverishment of the nobility had gone on 
steadily for several centuries. A man of rank ob- 
served sadly in 1755, " Notwithstanding their priv- 
ileges, the nobility are falling daily deeper into diffi- 
culties and destruction, while the Third Estate inherits 
their fortunes." No change had been made in the 
laws which protected the property of the aristocracy, 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 103 

or in their economical condition. Yet they grew poor- 
er every where as they lost their power. 

One is almost inclined to fancy that human institu- 
tions, like the human body, contain, besides the par- 
ticular organs appointed to perform specific functions, 
a, central hidden force which is the vital principle. 
When this force is subdued, though the organs seem 
to act as usual, the whole machine langiiishes and dies. 
The French nobility stiU retained the use of entails 
(which, according to Burke, were more frequent and 
more binding in France than in England), laws of 
primogeniture, irredeemable ground-rents, and, gener- 
ally, the beneficial rights they derived from feudal cus- 
toms ; they had been released from military service, 
but paid fewer taxes than ever, thus getting rid of the 
burden while they retained the privilege. They en- 
joyed, moreover, many other pecuniary advantages 
which their fathers had never had, and jet they grew 
poorer gradually as they mixed less in the theory and 
practice of government. It was their poverty which 
mainly led to the extensive subdivision of landed 
property that has already been noted. '^ Men of rank 
sold their land piecemeal to the peasantry, reserving 
nothing but seigniorial rents, which furnished a nom- 
inal, not a substantial competency. Several French 
provinces, such as Limousin, which Turgot describes, 
were full of petty impoverished noblemen, who had no 
land left, and who lived on the produce of seigniorial 
rights and ground-rents. 

"In this province," said an intendant, "at the be- 
ginning of the century, there were several thousand 
noble families, but not fifteen out of the whole number 



104 THE OLD EEGIME 

had an income of twenty thousand livres." I find a 
memorandum addressed by the intendant of Franche- 
Comte to his successor in 1750, in which it is said 
that " the nobility of this section of country are of high 
rank, but very poor, and as proud as they are poor. 
The contrast between their former and their present 
condition is humiliating. It is a very good plan to 
keep them poor, in order that they shall need our aid 
and serve our purposes. They have formed," he adds, 
"a society into which no one can obtain admission 
unless he can prove four quarterings. It is not incor- 
porated by letters patent ; but it is tolerated, as it 
meets but once a year, and in the presence of the in- 
tendant. These noblemen h^r mass and dine togeth- 
er, after which they return home, some on their Eosi- 
nantes, some on foot. You will enjoy this comical 
assembly." 

All over the Continent, in the countries where the 
feudal system was being displaced and no new aris- 
tocracy founded, as was the case in France, the nobil- 
ity were relapsing into poverty. Their decline was 
peculiarly marked among the German nations border- 
ing on the Ehine. England alone presented a con- 
trast. There the old noble families had not only kept, 
but largely increased their fortunes, and were the chiefs 
of the nation in wealth as well as in power. The new 
families which had grown up by their side competed 
with them, but could not surpass them in magnificence. 

In France, the commoners {roturiers) inherited all 
the property lost by the nobility ; they seemed to fatten 
on their substance. The laws did not hinder common- 
ers from ruining themselves, or help them to acquire 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 105 

wealth ; yet they did acquire it constantly, and be- 
came as rich or richer than men of rank. They often 
invested their means in the same kind of property as 
the nobles held ; though usually residents of the city, 
they often owned country estates, and occasionally 
even seigniories. 

Both classes were educated alike, and led similar 
lives, hence more 'points of resemblance. The com- 
moner was as well informed as the ilobleman, and had 
obtained his information from the same source. Both 
were equally and similarly enlightened ; both had re- 
ceived the same theoretical and literary education. 
Paris had become the sole preceptor of France, and 
shaped all minds in the same form and mould. 

There was, no doubt, at the close of the eighteenth 
century, a difference between the manners of the noble 
and the commoner, for nothing resists the leveling pro- 
cess so long as that superficial varnish called manners. 
But at bottom all the classes which ranked above the 
people were alike. Their ideas were the same; so 
were their habits, tastes, pleasures, books, and lan- 
guage. They differed in point of rights alone. 

I doubt whether the same fact existed to the same 
extent in any other country. Common interests had 
closely knit together the various social classes in En- 
gland, but they differed widely in habits and ideas ; 
for political liberty, so long enjoyed by that admira- 
ble power, though it unites men by close relations and 
mutual dependence, does not always assimilate them 
one to another ; it is despotism which, in the long run, 
inevitably renders them mere duplicates one of the 
other, and types of selfishness. - . 

E2 



106 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THAT THESE MEN, WHO WEKE SO ALIKE, WERE MORE DIVIDED THAN 
THEY HAD EVER BEEN INTO PETTY GROUPS, EACH INDEPENDENT OP 
AND INDIFFERENT TO THE OTHERS. 

LET US now glance at the reverse of the picture, 
and see how these same Frenchmen, who had so 
many features in common, were, notwithstanding, split 
into more isolated groups than any other people or 
their own ancestry. 

There is reason to believe that, at the time the feu- 
dal system was established in Europe, the class since 
known as the nobility did not form a casU^ but was 
composed originally of the chief men of the nation, 
thus forming a real aristocracy. That is a question 
which I do not purpose to discuss in this place. I 
merely observe that in the Middle Ages the nobility 
had become a caste ; that is to say, its distinguishing 
mark was birth. 

It resembled an aristocracy inasmuch as it was the 
governing body ; but birth alone decided who should 
stand at the head of that body. All who were not of 
noble birth were excluded from its ranks, and filled a 
station in the state which might vary in dignity, but 
was always subordinate. 

Wherever the feudal system took root in Europe, it 
led to the establishment of castes ; in England alone 
it gave birth to an aristocracy. 

I have always been surprised that a fact so strik- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 107 

ingly peculiar to England, and whicli is the only true 
key to the peculiarities of her laws, her spirit, and her 
history, should have obtained so little notice among 
philosophers and statesmen. Custom seems to have 
blinded the English to its importance. It has often 
been half noticed and half described, but never, I think, 
fully and clearly realized. Montesquieu, who visited 
Great Britain in 1739, certainly did write, "I am in 
a country which does not resemble the west of Eu- 
rope ;" but he went no farther. 

The contrast between England and the rest of Eu- 
rope arose, indeed, less from her Parliament, her lib- 
erty, her freedom of the press, and her jury system, 
than from another and more important peculiarity. 
England was the only country where castes had been 
not altered, but thoroughly abolished : noblemen and 
people engaged in the same avocations, entered the 
same professions, and, what is more significant, inter- 
married with each other. The daughter of the great- 
est nobleman in the land might marry, without dis- 
honor, a man of no hereditary rank. 

If you want to ascertain whether castes, and the 
ideas, habits, and barriers to which they give rise, are 
really abolished in any nation, look at the marriages 
which take place there. There you will find the de- 
cisive test. Sixty years of democracy have not whol- 
ly effaced privileges of caste in France ; old families, 
mixed and confounded with new ones in every thing 
else, still scorn connection with them by marriage. 

It has often been said that the English nobility 
were more prudent, more skillful, more open than the 
nobility of any other country. The truth is, that there 



108 THE OLD REGIME 

had not "been, for a long period of time, any nobility at 
all in England, in the old circumscribed meaning of 
the word. 

The revolution which destroyed it is lost in the 
night of time, but the English tongue is a surviving 
witness of the change. Many centuries since, the 
meaning of the word "gentleman" changed in En- 
gland, and the word " roturier" ceased to exist. When 
Moliere wrote Tartuffe in 1664, it would have been 
impossible to give a literal English version of the line, 
" Et tel que Ton le voit, il est bon gentilhomme." 

Language can be made to throw farther light on the 
science of history. Follow, for instance, the meanings 
of the word gentleman throughout its career. Our 
word " gentilhomme" was its father. As distinctions 
of classes became less marked in England, its signifi- 
cation widened. Century after century, it was applied 
to lower and lower classes in the social scale. The 
English at last bore it with them to America, where it 
was indiscriminately applied to all classes. Its his- 
tory is, in fact, that of democracy. 

In France, the word " gentilhomme" never acquired 
more latitude than it possessed at first. Since the 
Eevolution it has become disused, but not modified. 
The word which described members of the caste was 
preserved unaltered, because the caste itself was re- 
tained as widely distinct as ever from other classes of 
society. 

I will go farther. I maintain that the caste had 
grown more distinct and exclusive than ever ; that the 
movement of French society had been exactly opposite 
to that which took place in England. 



AND THE REVOLUTION 109 

While tlie citizen and the noble had grown more 
like each other, the distance between them had in- 
creased ; their mutual resemblance had rather aliena- 
ted than united them. 

During the Middle Ages, when the feudal system 
was in full vigor, the holders of seigniorial lands (who 
were technically styled vassals), whether nobles or not, 
were constantly associated with the seignior in the 
government of the seigniory. That was, in fact, the 
principal condition of their tenure. They were bound 
by their titles not only to follow their seignior in arms, 
but to assist him, for a given time each year, in ren- 
dering justice in his court, and administering the gov- 
ernment of the seigniory. Seigniorial courts were the 
mainspring of feudal government ; they figure in all 
the old laws of Europe, and I have found marked 
traces of them in many parts of Germany even in our 
own time. A learned feudist, Edme de Freminville, 
who thought proper, thirty years before the Eevolution, 
to write a voluminous work on feudal rights and the 
renewal of court rolls, informs us that he has seen 
"many seigniorial titles by which the vassals bound 
themselves to attend, every fortnight, at the seignior's 
court, there to sit, jointly with him or his judge in 
ordinary, in judgment upon disputes and lawsuits be- 
tween the people of the seigniory." He adds, that he 
has " found as many as eighty, a hundred and fifty, 
and even two hundred vassals, a great proportion of 
whom were roturiers^ pledged to this service in a seig- 
niory." This I quote, not as a proof of the custom — 
such evidence abounds — ^but as an instance of the early 
and long-continued association of the peasantry with 



110 THE OLD EEGIME 

men of rank. They were constantly engaged together 
in the transaction of the same business. What the 
seigniorial courts did for small rural landholders, the 
Provincial States, and, at a later period, the States- 
General, effected for the middle class in cities. 

It is impossible to read the extant records of the 
States-General and Provincial States of the fourteenth 
century without being amazed at the weight and power 
exercised by the Third Estate in these assemblies. 

As individuals, the burghers of the fourteenth cen- 
tury were, no doubt, very inferior to those of the 
eighteenth; collectively, they occupied a higher and 
more solidly established rank. Their right to take 
part in the government was uncontroverted ; their 
share in political assemblies was always large, often 
paramount. The other classes were daily reminded of 
the necessity of making terms with them. 

It is quite striking to notice how easily the nobility 
and the Third Estate then combined for purposes of 
action or defense — no easy matter to contrive at a later 
day. Many of the States-General of the fourteenth 
century derived an irregular and revolutionary charac- 
ter from the disasters of the time ; but the Provincial 
States of the same period, on which there is no reason 
to suppose any abnormal influence was operating, con- 
tain singular evidence of this harmony. In Auvergne 
the Three Estates combined to carry out most impor- 
tant measures, and appointed commissioners, chosen 
equally from each, to superintend their execution. 
Champagne witnessed a similar spectacle at the same 
time. Nor is it necessary to do more than hint at the 
famous league between the nobles and citizens of sev- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. Ill 

eral cities, by whicli the leaguers bound themselves, 
at the beginning of the same century, to defend their 
national franchises and provincial privileges against 
the encroachments of the royal power. ^ ^ Our histo- 
ry, at that age, is full of similar episodes, which seem 
to have been borrowed from the history of England. 
They disappear entirely in later times. 

With the disorganization of the seigniorial govern- 
ments, the increasing infrequency or total cessation 
of meetings of the States-General, and the ruin of na- 
tional and local liberties together, the middle classes 
ceased to associate in public life with men of rank. 
There was no longer any necessity for their meeting 
and coming to a mutual understanding. They became 
daily more independent of each other, and more com- 
plete strangers. By the eighteenth century the change 
was accomplished ; the two classes only met accident- 
ally in private life. They were not only rivals, but 
enemies. 

A feature which appears peculiar to France was the 
seeming aggrandizement of individual noblemen at the 
cost of the order. While the nobility, as an order, 
was losing its political power, men of rank were ac- 
quiring new privileges and augmenting their old ones. 
The former had lost its corporate authority, but still 
the new master chose his chief servants more exclu- 
sively than ever from among its members. It was 
easier for a commoner {roturier) to become an officer 
under Louis XIV. than Louis XYI. Commoners oft- 
en obtained office in Prussia at a time when the fact 
was unexampled in France. All the new privileges 
were hereditary and inseparable from blood. The 



112 THE OLD EEGIME 

more the nobility ceased to "be an aristocracy the more 
it became a caste. 

Let us take the most odious of these privileges, the 
exemption from taxes : it is easily seen that from the 
fifteenth century to the French Eevolution it was con- 
stantly on the increase. It became more valuable as 
the taxes swelled. When the taille was but 1,200,000 
livres under Charles VII., the privilege of not being 
bound to contribute was not worth much ; but it was 
considerable when the tax yielded 80,000,000, under 
Louis XYI. When the taille was the only tax from 
which the nobility were exempt, their privileges might 
pass unnoticed ; but when similar taxes had been cre- 
ated in a thousand different shapes and with a thou- 
sand different names, when four other imposts had been 
placed on the same footing as the taille, and new im- 
positions, such as royal corvees on all public works, 
military duty, &c., had been laid on every class save 
the nobles only, their privileges appeared immense.^ 
True, the inequality, great as it was, seemed still great- 
er, for the nobleman's farmer had often to pay the very 
taxes which his master flattered himself he escaped ; 
but, in these matters, the semblance of injustice is more 
mischievous than the reality. 

Louis XIV., when laboring under the financial diffi- 
culties which at last overwhelmed him, toward the close 
of his reign, created two taxes, a capitation-tax and a 
land-tax of a twentieth, which were to be paid by all 
his subjects indiscriminately. But, as though the priv- 
ilege of the nobility was so intrinsically respectable 
that it deserved consideration even in cases where it 
did not apply, care was taken to preserve a distinction 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 113 

in the manner of levying it.^ ' '^ It was exacted of the 
people harshly and with marks of degradation ; the no- 
bles were respectfully and gently requested to pay J 

The taxes had been unequal all over Europe, but 
the inequality was more plainly seen and severely felt 
in France than abroad. The bulk of the taxes in Ger- 
many were indirect, and the exemption from direct 
taxes, enjoyed by the nobility, was only partial — they 
paid less than other people. They were taxed special- 
ly, too, in lieu of the military service they had once 
been bound to render. 

Now, of all the methods that have been devised for 
the division of nations into classes, unequal taxes are 
the most pernicious and effective. They tend to iso- 
late each class in*emediably; for when the tax is une- 
qual, the line is drawn afresh every year between the 
taxables and the exempts ; the distinction is never al- 
lowed to fade. Every member of the privileged class 
feels a pressing and immediate interest in keeping it 
up, and maintaining his isolation from the taxable 
community. 

All, or nearly all public measures begin or end with 
a tax. Hence, when two classes of citizens do not feel 
the taxes alike, they cease to have common interests 
and feelings in common ; they do not require to meet 
for consultation ; they have no opportunity and no de- 
sire to act in concert. 

Burke draws a flattering picture of the old constitu- 
tion of France, and makes a point in favor of the insti- 
tution of nobility, that commoners might obtain rank 
by procuring office ; he evidently infers an analogy be- 
tween this feature of our institutions and the open aris- 



114 THE OLD EEaiME 

tocracy of England. Nor can it be denied that Louis 
XI. bestowed titles freely in order to reduce the power 
of the nobility, and that his successors did the same 
thing to get money. Necker states that in his time as 
many as four thousand offices carried with them noble 
rank. No similar feature existed elsewhere in Europe. 
Yet the analogy which Burke seeks to establish be- 
tween France and England was none the less false. 

The real secret of the stanch attachment of the 
middle classes of England to their aristocracy did not 
lie in the fact that it was an open body ; it flowed rath- 
er from the undefined extent and unknown limits of 
that body. Englishmen bore with their aristocracy less 
because they could obtain admission within its pale, 
than because they never knew when they were within, 
and could always consider themselves part and parcel 
of it, could share its authority, and derive eclat or prof- 
it from its power. 

In France, on the contrary, the barrier which sepa- 
rated the nobility from the other classes, though easily 
surmounted, was always conspicuous, and known by 
outward and odious marks. The parvenu who over- 
stepped it was separated from his former associates by 
privileges which were onerous and humiliating for them. 

The plan of raising commoners to the nobility, there- 
fore, far from weakening their hatred of the superior 
class, increased it beyond measure. New nobles were 
viewed by their old equals with most bitter envy. 
Hence it was that the Third Estate evinced far more 
dislike of the new than of the old nobility, and demand- 
ed constantly that the entrance to the ranks of the no- 
bility should be, not enlarged, but narrowed. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 115 

At no time in our history was it so easy to "become 
a noble as in 1789, and at no time had the nobility 
and the commonalty been so distinct and separate. 
Not only did the nobles exclude from their electoral 
colleges every one who was the least tainted with ple- 
beian blood, but the commoners exhibited equal anxie- 
ty to keep out of their ranks all who looked like men 
of rank. In certain provinces, new nobles were reject- 
ed by one party because they were not deemed noble 
enough, by the others because they were too noble. 
This happened, it is said, to the celebrated Lavoisier. 

The burghers presented a very similar spectacle. 
They were as widely distinct from the people as the 
nobles from them. 

Nearly the whole middle class under the old regime 
lived in the cities. Two causes had produced this re- 
sult; the privileges of men of rank and the taille. 
Seigniors residing on their estates could afford to be 
good-natured and patronizing to the peasantry, but 
they were insolent to a degree to their neighbors of a 
higher rank. And the more political power they lost, 
the more proud and overbearing they became. Nor 
could it be otherwise ; for when they were stripped 
of their authority, they no longer needed to conciliate 
partners in the business of government, while, on the 
other hand, they tried to console themselves for the sac- 
rifice of substantial authority by an immoderate abuse 
of its outward semblance. Their absence from their 
estates was rather an increased inconvenience than a 
relief to their neighbors ; absenteeism had not even 
that advantage, and privileges exercised by attorney 
were only the more intolerable. 



116 THE OLD REaiME 

I question, however, whether the taille and the other 
taxes which had been placed on the same footing were 
not still more effective causes than these. 

It would be easy to explain, and that in a few words, 
why the taille was a more oppressive tax in the coun- 
try than in the cities ; but the reader may not consid- 
er such an explanation requisite. It will suffice, there- 
fore, to say that the middle classes domiciled in cities 
were enabled, in many various ways, to evade the tax, 
wholly or partially, which they could not have done 
had they been living on their property in the country. 
Above all, a city residence saved them from the risk 
of being chosen to levy the taille. This they dreaded 
more than the tax itself, and very justly, for there was 
not, in the whole range of society under the old regime, 
or even in any society, I believe, a position worse than 
that of parochial collector of the taille. I shall have 
occasion to demonstrate this hereafter. Yet, with the 
single exception of men of rank, no resident of a vil- 
lage could escape the office. Kather than submit to 
the burden, rich commoners leased their estates and 
went to live in the nearest city. Turgot is consistent 
with the secret documents which I have had occasion 
to consult when he declares that *' the collection of the 
taille converts the landholding commoners of the coun- 
try into city burghers." This, it may be observed by 
the way, was one of the reasons why France was more 
plentifully sprinkled with towns, and especially small 
towns, than any other country of Europe. 

Inclosed within city walls, the rich commoner lost 
his rural tastes and feelings. He ceased to take an 
interest in the toils and concerns of the class he had 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 117 

deserted. His life had hencefortli but one object : he 
aspired to become a public functionary in his adopted 
city. 

It is a grave error to suppose that the rage for of- 
fice-seeking, which stamps the French of our day, the 
middle classes especially, sprung up since the Kevo- 
lution: it dates from a much more ancient period, 
though constant encouragement has steadily developed 
and intensified it. 

The ofiices of the old regime were not always like 
ours, but I think they were more numerous ; there was 
no end to the small ones. Between 1693 and 1709 
alone, it has been calculated that forty thousand were 
created, all within reach of the most slender commoner. 
I have myself counted, in a provincial town of no gTcat 
size, in the year 1750, the names of one hundred and 
nine persons engaged in administering justice, and a 
hundred and twenty-six more busied in executing their 
orders. The middle classes really coveted government 
places with unexampled ardor. The moment a man 
acquired a little capital, instead of investing it in trade, 
he bought an ofiice directly. Not even the close com- 
panies or the taille have proved as injurious to the 
commercial and agricultural interests of France as this 
mania for places. When no ofiices were vacant, the 
place-hunters set their imagination to work and soon 
invented new ones. I find a published memorial of a 
Sieur Lemberville, in which he proves that inspectors 
of this or that branch of industry are absolutely need- 
ed, and winds up by ofiering himself for the future of- 
fice. Who has not known a Lemberville? A man 
possessed of some education and means did not think 



118 THE OLD REGIME 

it decorous to die without having been a public func- 
tionary. "Each in his way," said a contemporary, 
" wants to be something by his majesty's favor." 

The only substantial difference between the custom 
of those days and our own resides in the price paid 
for office. Then they were sold by government, now 
they are bestowed ; it is no longer necessary to pay 
money; the object can be attained by selling one's 
soul. 

Interest, to a still greater extent than locality or 
habits of life, drew a line between the middle classes 
and the peasantry. Complaint is made about the priv- 
ileges of the nobles, and very justly ; but what must 
be said of those of the middle classes ? Thousands 
of offices carried with them exemptions from this or 
that impost. One exempted its holder from serving 
in the militia, another from performing corvees, a third 
from paying the taille. "Where is the parish," said 
a writer of the time, "that does not contain, besides 
nobles and clergy, a number of inhabitants who have 
procured some exemption from taxes by obtaining of- 
fice under government ?" The number was so great, 
in fact, as to produce at times a sensible falling off in 
the product of the taille ; and, now and then, this in- 
convenience led to the abolition of several useless of- 
fices. I have no doubt that exemptions were as fre- 
quent among the middle classes as among the nobility, 
and even more so. 

These wretched privileges excited the envy of those 
who did not enjoy them, and filled their possessors 
with selfish pride. Nothing more common, during the 
whole of the eighteenth century, than hostility and 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 119 

jealousy between cities and the surrounding country. 
Turgot declares that *' the towns are monopolized by 
selfishness, and are always ready to sacrifice the vil- 
lage and country parts in their district." On another 
occasion, he reminds his sub-delegates how "often" 
they have been " obliged to repress the tendency of 
cities to usurp the rights and encroach upon the priv- 
ileges of the villages and country parts in their dis- 
trict." 

The middle classes contrived to make strangers and 
enemies of the lower classes in the cities also. Most 
of the local taxes were devised so as to fall mainly 
upon the latter. Turgot remarks somewhere that the 
middle classes usually contrived to escape the pay- 
ment of town dues ; and this I have found to be cor- 
rect. 

But the most striking characteristic of the middle 
classes was their fear of being confounded with the 
people, and their violent desire to escape in some way 
from popular control. 

"If it be the king's pleasure," said the burghers of 
a city in a memorial to the comptroller-general, "that 
the office of mayor become elective, it would be fitting 
that the choice of the electors should be restricted to 
the principal notables, and even to the presidial." 

We have had occasion to notice how steadily the 
kings pursued the policy of stripping the cities of their 
political rights. This is the leading feature of their 
tactics from Louis XI. to Louis XV. The burghers 
often aided in the accomplishment of these schemes, 
and sometimes suggested them. 

At the time of the municipal reform of 1764, an in- 



120 THE OLD REGIME 

tendant consulted the municipal officers of a small town 
on the subject of retaining an elective magistracy, 
chosen partly by the lower classes. They replied that, 
to tell the truth, "the people had never abused the 
franchise, and it would no doubt be agreeable to con- 
firm them in the right of choosing their masters ; still 
it was better, for the sake of order and the public tran- 
quillity, that the matter should be left to the decision 
of the notables." The sub-delegate of the same town 
reported that he had invited to a secret conference " the 
six leading citizens of the place," who were unani- 
mously of opinion that the best thing to do was to have 
the magistrates elected, not by the assembly of nota- 
bles, as the municipal officers proposed, but by a small 
committee selected from the various bodies which com- 
posed the assembly. The sub-delegate, who was more 
favorable to popular freedom than these citizens, re- 
ported their opinion, but added that "it was hard for 
mechanics to be deprived of control over moneys exact- 
ed from them in virtue of taxes imposed by those 
among their fellow-citizens who, by reason of the ex- 
emption from taxes they enjoyed, were often disinter- 
ested in the matter." 

To complete the picture, let us glance at the middle 
classes independently of their relations to the people, 
as we examined the nobility independently of its bear- 
ing on the middle classes. 

The first striking feature in this small part of the 
nation is infinite subdivision. The French people 
really seem to resemble those pretended elementary 
substances which science is unceasingly resolving into 
new elements the closer it examines them. I have 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 121 

studied a small town in which I found the names of 
thirty-six different bodies of citizens. These various 
bodies, small as they were, were constantly hard at 
work reducing their size ; they were ever throwing 
off some foreign particle or other, and trying to re- 
duce their condition to that of simple elements. This 
operation had cut down some of them to not more than 
three or four members. They were none the less 
quarrelsome and consequential on that account. Pe- 
culiar privileges, among which the least decorous were 
still marks of honor, distinguished each class from the 
others, and endless was the struggle for precedence 
among them. Intendant and courts were stunned 
with the clamor of their quarrels. " It has just been 
decided that the holy water must be given to the pre- 
sidial before the city corporation. The Parliament 
hesitated, but the king evoked the case, and decided it 
in Council. It was high time ; the whole city was in 
a ferment on the subject." If one body is granted 
precedence over another at the assembly of notables, 
the injured corporation withdraws ; it will abandon its 
public duties rather than see, as it says, its dignity in- 
sulted. The corporation of barbers in the city of La 
Fleche decided "to express in this manner the nat- 
ural grief which it felt at the precedence awarded to 
the bakers." A portion of the notables of a city re- 
fused to perform their functions, "because," said the 
intendant, " some mechanics had obtained admission 
to the assembly, and with these the leading citizens 
could not humble themselves by associating." Anoth- 
er intendant observed, " If the rank of alderman be 
given to a notary, that will disgust the other notables, 
F 



122 THE OLD liEGIME 

for the notaries are men of low "birth, not sons of no- 
tables, and have been clerks in their youth." The six 
leading citizens, whom I have mentioned above, who 
were so ready to strip the people of their political 
rights, were greatly perplexed when called upon to des- 
ignate who should be notables, and what should be the 
order of precedence among them. On this point they 
expressed their views rather by doubts and hints than 
straightforward suggestions : " They were afraid," they 
said, " of hurting the feelings of their fellow-citizens." 

The friction between these small bodies sharpened 
the peculiar vanity of the French, but extinguished the 
proper pride of the citizen. Most of these corpora- 
tions existed in the sixteenth century, but then, after 
having transacted the business of their exclusive as- 
sociation, they mingled with the other citizens for the 
transaction of the general concerns of the city. In the 
eighteenth century no such intermixture took place, 
for symptoms of municipal life had become rare, and 
city business was managed by hired agents. Each of 
these small societies lived for itself alone, thought of 
nothing but its own affairs, had no interest in any con- 
cerns but those which were exclusively its own. 

Our ancestors had no such word as "individual- 
ity," which we have coined for our use. They did not 
need it, because in their time there were no individu- 
als wholly isolated and unconnected with some group 
or other; but each of the small groups of which French 
society was composed was intensely selfish, whence 
arose a sort of collective individuality, so to speak, 
which prepared men's minds for the true individuality 
of the present day. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 123 

The strangest feature of the old society was the 
similarity which existed among all these individuals 
thus grouped in different sets ; they were so alike that 
when they changed their surroundings it was impos- 
sible to recognize them ; moreover, in their hearts 
they regarded the petty barriers which split them into 
rival cliques as equally contrary to public interest and 
common sense. In theory they were all for unity. 
Each held to his set because others did the like ; but 
they were all ready to fuse together into one mass, 
provided no one obtained peculiar advantages, or rose 
above the common level. 



124 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW THE DESTRUCTION OF POLITICAL LIBERTY AND CLASS DIVIS- 
IONS WERE THE CAUSES OF ALL THE DISEASES OF WHICH THE 
OLD REGIME DIED. 

OF all the fatal diseases which assailed the consti- 
tution of the old regime, the most deadly was 
the one I have just described. Let us return to the 
source of this strange and terrible malady, and see how 
many other troubles had the same origin. 

Had the English wholly lost their political liberties 
and all the local franchises dependent thereon during 
the crisis of the Middle Ages, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that the classes which comprise their aristocracy 
would have held themselves quite aloof from the peo- 
ple, as the corresponding classes did in France. It 
was the spirit of liberty which compelled them to re- 
main within reach of the people, in order to come to 
an understanding with them when required. 

It is curious to note how ambition prompted the 
English nobility to mix familiarly with their inferiors, 
and to treat them as equals when necessity seemed to 
require it. Arthur Young, from whom I have quoted 
already, and whose work is one of the most instruct- 
ive that can be consulted on Old France, relates how, 
while he was staying at the country-house of the Duke 
of Liancourt, he expressed a wish to converse with 
some of the most skillful and intelligent farmers of the 
neighborhood. The duke sent his intendant for them, 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 125 

upon which the Englishman remarks: "An English 
nobleman, in the like case, would have asked three or 
four farmers to dinner with his family, and would have 
had them sit by the side of the noblest ladies. I have 
seen that a hundred times over in our island, but you 
may travel from Calais to Bayonne without seeing any 
thing of the kind here." 

Beyond a doubt, the British aristocracy was natural- 
ly more haughty and more averse to familiarity with 
its inferiors than the same class in France, but the 
necessities of its position imposed restraints. It was 
willing to sacrifice any thing for power. For centu- 
ries the only alterations in the taxes were made in 
favor of the poorer classes. Notice, I beg, how widely 
neighbors may be made to differ by different political 
principles I "^ In the eighteenth century, in England, 
the only exemptions from taxes were enjoyed by the 
poor, in France by the rich. There the aristocracy 
had assumed all the burdens in order to enjoy the 
power of governing ; here they steadily refused to pay 
taxes, as their only consolation for the loss of political 
power. 

During the fourteenth century, the maxim Ifim- 
pose qui ne veut (no taxation without the consent of 
the taxables), appears to have been as solidly estab- 
lished in France as in England. It w^as frequently 
quoted ; deviations from it were regarded as acts of 
tyranny, absolute conformity with it constitutional. 
At this period our institutions were analogous, in many 
respects, to those of the English. But thenceforth the 
destinies of the two nations began to deviate, and be- 
came more unlike from century to century. They 



126 THE OLD KEGIME 

might be compared to two lines, which, starting from 
adjacent points in slightly different directions, separate 
more widely the more they are prolonged. 

I venture to assert that when the nation, wearied 
out by the long disorders which had accompanied the 
captivity of King John and the insanity of Charles 
YI., allowed the kings to impose a tax without its 
consent, the nobles basely concurring on condition that 
they should be exempt, they sowed the seed of all the 
abuses and mischiefs which troubled the old regime 
during its existence, and led to its violent death ; and 
I admire the singular sagacity of Commines when he 
says, " When Charles VII. gained the right of im- 
posing the taille at will without the consent of the 
States, he greatly changed his spirit {son ame) and 
that of his successors, and dealt his kingdom a wound 
that will bleed for a long time to come.'' 

See how the wound has been enlarged by time ; 
trace the consequences of this one act. 

Forbonnais remarks with truth, in his learned "Re- 
searches on French Finances," that, during the Middle 
Ages, monarchs usually lived on the produce of their 
domains; "and as extraordinary necessities," he adds, 
" were met by extraordinary taxes, they bore equally 
on the clergy, the nobility, and the people." 

Most of the general taxes, voted by the three orders 
during the fourteenth century, were of this character. 
Nearly all the taxes established at this time were in- 
direct, that is to say, they bore on all consumers indis- 
criminately. When the tax was direct, it bore, not 
on propert/, but on incomes. For instance, nobles, 
clergy, and commoners were required to abandon to the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 127 

king a titlie of tlieir income. And the rule with regard 
to taxes laid by the States-General applied with equal 
:force to those which were laid by the Provincial States 
within their territories. 

It is, true that even then the direct tax, called taille, 
•did not bear on men of rank, who were exempt in con- 
sideration of serving gratuitously as soldiers in time 
of war. But the taille, as a general tax, was restrict- 
ed in its operation ; it applied to seigniories more than 
to the kingdom. 

When the king first undertook to impose a tax of 
his own will and mere motion, he was well aware that 
policy indicated the selection of one which did not bear 
upon the nobility, and which they — who were the most 
powerful class in the kingdom, and the only rivals of 
the sovereign — would not be provoked to resist ; and, 
accordingly, he chose the taille. 

Inequalities enough existed already between the va- 
rious classes of Frenchmen ; this new distinction was 
more sweeping than \ all, and aggravated while it con- 
firmed the others. Thencefortli, in proportion to the in- 
creased necessities which were produced by the enlarged 
ambition of the central power, the taille increased and 
multiplied, till the original amount levied was decupled, 
and every new tax was a taille,'^ Year by year the tax- 
gathering divided society anew, and re-erected the bar- 
rier between the taxables and the exempts. The first 
condition of the tax being its imposition, not on those 
who could afford to pay it, but on those who could 
not afford to resist it, government was driven into the 
monstrous anomaly of sparing the rich and burdening 
the poor. It is said that Mazarin once intended to 



128 THE OLD REGIME 

supply a pressing exigency by a tax on the principal 
houses in Paris ; Ibut, meeting with more resistance 
than he had anticipated, he simply added the five mill- 
ions he wanted to the taille levy. His design had been 
to tax the most wealthy citizens ; in fact, he taxed the 
poorest ; but the treasury got the money. 

Taxes so unequal yielded a limited revenue; but 
there was no limit to the necessities of the throne. 
Still, king after king refused to convoke the States in 
order to obtain subsidies, and refrained from taxing the 
nobility lest the annoyance should provoke them to in- 
sist on a return to constitutional usage. Hence those 
prodigious and mischievous financial tours de force, 
which marked the history of the French treasury dur- 
ing the last three centuries of the monarchy. 

A careful study of the financial 'and administrative 
history of the old regime shows to what straits and dis- 
honest shifts the want of money will reduce a govern- 
ment, however mild it may be, so long as it is uncheck- 
ed, and fears neither publicity on the one hand, nor 
revolution — that safeguard of popular liberty — on the 
other. 

That history teems with instances of royal proper- 
ties sold, then resumed as inalienable ; of violated con- 
tracts ; vested rights trampled ; public creditors sacri- 
ficed at every crisis ; the public faith constantly broken. ° 

Privileges, granted as perpetual, were constantly re- 
voked. If it were possible to sympathize with the suf- 
ferings of martyrs to vanity, one would pity those un- 
fortunate new-made noblemen who, during the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, were so often called 
upon to pay for honors and unjust privileges, whose 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 129 

price they had fully paid at the time of the original 
purchase. Louis XIV., for instance, annulled all the 
titles of nobility that had been granted during the nine- 
ty-two years previous, though most of them had been 
granted by himself. Their possessors could only retain 
them on paying more money, " all these titles having 
been granted by surprise," says the edict. An example 
which Louis XV. took care to imitate eighty years aft- 
erward. 

It was pronounced illegal for militia-men to serve 
by substitute, as the practice would tend to enhance 
the value of recruits. 

Cities, corporations, hospitals, were forced to repudi- 
ate their engagements in order to lend their money to 
the king. Parishes were hindered from undertaking 
useful works for fear that the taille might be less reg- 
ularly paid if their resources were divided. 

It is related that M. Orry and M. Trudaine, who 
were respectively comptroller-general and director-gen- 
eral of the department of Bridges and Eoads, formed 
a plan for the commutation of seigniorial corvees on 
highways into an annual payment in money, to be ap- 
plied to repairing the roads of each canton. There is 
much instruction in the reason which deterred these 
able officials from executing their design ; they were 
afraid, it is said, that it would be impossible to prevent 
the treasury from embezzling the money, and obliging 
the people bo^ to labor on the roads and to pay for 
their repairs besides. I do not hesitate to say that no 
private individual could escape ruin if he conducted his 
affairs as the great monarch in all his glory managed 
the public business. 

F2 



130 THE OLD REGIME 

All tlie old mediaeval institutions, whose faults were 
aggravated as eveiy thing around them improved, may 
be traced i;o a financial origin ; the same is true of the 
pernicious innovations of a later date. To pay the 
debts of a day, powers were created which lasted cen- 
turies. 

A particular tax, called the freehold duty {droit de 
franc fief), had been laid at a very remote period on 
commoners who possessed estates noble. This duty 
created the same division among lands as existed among 
men ; and each helped the other. The freehold duty 
hindered the fusion of the nobility and the people on 
the neutral ground of real estate ; and I dare say it 
was more effective than any thing else in keeping them 
apart. It opened a gulf between the nobleman and his 
neighbor. In England, nothing so powerfully aided 
the fusion of the two classes as the abolition, in the 
seventeenth century, of all the distinguishing marks 
which served to separate feudal lands from freeholds. 

During the fourteenth century the feudal freehold 
duty was light, and only exacted at long intervals. 
During the eighteenth, when the feudal system was 
nearly abolished, it was rigorously levied every twenty 
years, and amounted to a twelvemonth's income of the 
land. Sons paid it on succeeding to their father. The 
agricultural society of Tours stated, in 1761, that "this 
duty was infinitely injurious to the progress of agri- 
cultural science. No tax levied by the king's govern- 
ment is so vexatious or so onerous in the country parts 
as this one." Another contemporary observed that 
"this imposition, which was originally paid but once 
in a lifetime, has become a very cruel exaction." The 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 131 

nobility wished to see it abolished, for it operated to 
hinder commoners from buying their estates ;i' but the 
necessities of government involved its maintenance, 
and even its extension. 

The Middle Ages have been unjustly blamed for 
much of the mischief produced by the trade-corpora- 
tions. There is every reason to believe that, in the 
origin, trade-companies and trade-unions were formed 
merely for the purpose of uniting the members of each 
craft together, and establishing a sort of free govern- 
ment for each branch of industry, in order to assist 
and control the operatives. It does not appear that 
Saint Louis contemplated any thing beyond this. 

It was not till the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, when the revival of civil and religious liberty was 
in full progress, that the idea of placing labor on the 
-footing of a privilege to be purchased of government 
was first broached. It was not till then that each 
craft became a small, close aristocracy, and a start was 
given to those monopolies which were so injurious 
to the progress of the arts and so odious to our an- 
cestors. From the time of Henry III., who general- 
ized, if he did not actually create the evil, to that of 
Louis XVI., who extirpated it, it may be said that the 
system of trade-companies acquired fresh strength and 
extension every year ; and this, while the progress of 
society as steadily aggravated their inconvenience, and 
common sense revealed their absurdity. Year after 
year the close corporation system was adopted by new 
trades, while the privileges of the old companies were 
constantly on the increase. The evil reached its cli- 
max at the period which is usually termed the glorious 



132 THE OLD REGIME 

portion of the reign of Louis XIV. ; for that was the 
time when the government stood in most urgent need 
of money, and was most firmly resolved not to appeal 
to the country. 

Letronne remarked very justly in 1775, " Govern- 
ment established trade-corporations solely for the pur- 
pose of obtaining ^oney from them, either by the sale 
of patents, or by the creation of offices which the cor- 
porations were bound to buy up. The edict of 1673 
carried out thoroughly the principles of Henry III. 
by obliging all corporations to purchase charters from 
government ; the next step was compelling all trades 
not incorporated to form companies. This wretched 
business yielded three hundred thousand livres." 

We have already seen how the constitutions of 
cities were overthrown, not from political motives, but 
in order to supply the public coffers with resources. 

The same pecuniary necessities, coupled with a fixed 
aversion to appeal to the States, led to the sale of of- 
fices — a feature in the old regime which gradually as- 
sumed such proportions that history may b© searched 
in vain for a parallel. It owed its origin to fiscal in- 
genuity. But it was so well contrived that for three 
centuries it fed the vanity of the middle classes, and 
directed the whole of their energies toward the acqui- 
sition of place ; it stamped on the national heart that 
rasre for offices, which. became the source alike of our 
revolutions and our servitude. 

As the finances became more embarrassed, new offi- 
ces were created, with exemptions from taxation or 
privileges by way of salary ; and, as they were created 
to supply the wants of the treasury, and not the re- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 133 

quirements of the public service, an immense number 
of them were useless or positively mischievous. 'i As 
early as 1664, when Colbert instituted an inquiry into 
the subject, it was discovered that the capital invest- 
ed in this miserable business nearly amounted to five 
hundred millions of livres. It is said that Richelieu 
abolished a hundred thousand offices. They rose 
anew under fresh names. For a trifle of money, peo- 
ple trafiicked away the right of directing and control- 
ling their own servants. The net result of this sys- 
tem was a government machine, so vast, so compli- 
cated, so cumbrous, and so inefficient, that it was actu- 
ally found necessary to let it stand idle, while a new 
instrument, constructed with more simplicity and bet- 
ter adapted for use, performed the work which these 
countless functionaries were supposed to do."^ 

It may be affirmed that none of these detestable in- 
stitutions could have lasted twenty years if it had 
been lawful to discuss their merits. None would have 
been established or extended if the States had been 
consulted, or if their complaints had been noticed when 
they were convened. On the rare occasions when the 
States met during the later ages of the monarchy, they 
were uniformly presented as a grievance. These as- 
semblies frequently traced all the abuses of which they 
complained to the king's usurpation of the right of 
levying taxes arbitrarily, or, to use the energetic ex- 
pressions of the fifteenth century, " of his enriching 
himself out of the substance of the people without the 
advice and consent of the three Estates. " They did not 
confine their remonstrances to their own wrongs ; they 
strenuously demanded, and often succeeded in enforc 



134 THE OLD EEGIME 

ing respect for the rights of the provinces and cities. 
Some members protested at everj session against the 
inequality of the public burdens. They repeatedly 
demanded the abolition of trade-corporations. They 
assailed the sale of offices century after century with 
increasing warmth. " To sell offices," they said, " is 
to sell justice, which is infamous." When the system 
of venal offices was firmly established, they complained 
of its abuse as persistently as ever. They exclaimed 
against the creation of useless and dangerous privi- 
leges ; but all was in vain. These institutions were 
barricades against the people. They were devised in 
order to obviate the necessity of convening the States, 
and to conceal from the public eye taxes which the 
government dared not exhibit in an honest light. 

JSFor were the good kings any better in this respect 
than the bad ones. It was Louis XII. who system- 
atized the sale of offices, and Henry IV. who first sold 
hereditary ones. So weak was personal virtue against 
the vice of the system ! 

It was the desire to avoid meeting the States which 
led to the original grant of political power to the Par- 
liaments, whence the judiciary became mixed with 
government in a manner that could not but be preju^ 
dicial to business. Policy dictated the establishment 
of new guarantees in the room of those that were taken 
away ; for the French, who are patient enough under 
moderate despotisms, do not like the sight of them ; 
and it is always wise to surround absolute power in 
France with a fence which, though it may not im- 
pede its movements, may conceal them from the pub- 
lic eye. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. VS5 

In fine, it was through fear lest the nation, whose 
money the kings wanted, should insist upon the resto- 
ration of its liberties, that class divisions were kept 
up ; for by this means organized resistance or a com- 
mon understanding was rendered impossible, and the 
government was certain of having to deal with each 
small clique separately. In the long course of French 
history, there reigned many distinguished sovereigns, 
several who were men of wit, some who were men of 
talent, while nearly all were men of courage ; but there 
was not a single one who tried to eiface class distinc- 
tions, or to promote union otherwise than as a condi- 
tion of dependence. I am wrong; there was one who 
did desire to see the people united, and tried with all 
his heart to unite them,, and that one — wonderful mys- 
tery of God's judgments I — was Louis XVI. ! 

The great crime of the old kings was the division of 
the people into classes. Their subsequent policy fol- 
lowed as a matter of course ; for when the wealthy and 
enlightened portion of a people are debarred from com- 
bination for public purposes, self-government becomes 
impossible, and tyranny becomes a necessity. 

Turgot, in a secret report to the king, observes sad- 
ly, "• The nation is composed of several disunited 
classes and a divided people; hence no one takes 
thought for any thing but his own private interest. 
Public spirit is a thing unknown. Villages and cities 
have no mutual relations with each other, nor have the 
counties {arrondissementi) in which they are situate. 
They are even unable to come to an understanding for 
the repair of the common roads. An incessant war- 
fare is carried on between rival claims and preten- 



136 THE OLD EEaiME 

sions ; the decision is invariably referred to your maj- 
esty or your servants. An order from you is required 
before people will pay taxes, or respect the rights of 
their neighbors, or even exercise their own." 

It was no slight task to reunite people who had been 
strangers to each other, or foes for so many centuries. 
It was very difficult to teach them to come to an under- 
standing for the transaction of their common business. 
Division was a comparatively easy achievement. We 
have furnished the world with a memorable illustration 
of the difficulty of the reverse process. When, sixty 
years ago, the various classes into which French socie- 
ty was divided were suddenly brought together, after 
a separation of several centuries, their only points of 
contact were their old sores ; they only met to tear each 
other in pieces. Their rival jealousies and liatreds sur- 
vive to this day. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 137 



CHAPTER XL 

OP THE KIND OF LIBERTY ENJOYED UNDER THE OLD REGIME, AND 
OF ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE REVOLUTION. 

IT is impossible to form an accurate conception of 
the government of tlie old regime, and of the socie- 
ty which produced the Revolution, without pursuing 
somewhat farther the perusal of this book. 

The spectacle of a people so divided and narrowed 
into cliques, with a royal authority so extensive and 
powerful, might lead to the impression that the spirit 
of independence had disappeared with public liberty, 
and that all Frenchmen were equally bowed in subjec- 
tion. Nothing of the kind was the case. The govern- 
ment was sole and absolute manager of the public bus- 
iness, but it was not master of individual citizens. 

Liberty survived in the midst of institutions already 
prepared for despotism ; but it was a curious kind of 
liberty, not easily understood to-day. A very close in- 
spection can alone discern the precise proportions of 
good and evil which it contained. 

While the central government was displacing all the 
local authorities, and absorbing the whole power of the 
kingdom, its action was often impeded by institutions 
which it had either created or refrained from destroying, 
by old usages and customs, by rooted abuses. These 
nurtured a spirit of resistance in the minds of individ- 
uals, and preserved the characters of a good many from 
losing all their temper and outline. 



138 THE OLD REGIME 

The central government had the same character, used 
the same means, sought the same ends that it does to- 
day, but its power was less. Bent on making money- 
out of every thing, it had sold most of the public of- 
fices, and made away with the privilege of disposing 
of its patronage at will.^ One of its passions had been, 
the detriment of the other ; its avarice had counteract- 
ed its ambition. It could not carry out its measures 
without employing agents whom it had not trained to 
the work, and whom it could not discharge for ineffi- 
ciency. Its positive commands were thus often neu- 
tralized by the loose manner in which they were carried 
out. This strange radical vice of the system operated 
as a sort of check against the omnipotence of govern- 
ment — a breakwater, irregular in form and badly built, 
but still serving to break the shock and weaken the 
force of authority. 

Again, the government had not as many favors to 
dispose of, in the shape of charitable assistance, hon- 
ors, and money, as it has to-day ; its power of seduc- 
tion, like its power of control, was le§s. 

It was not itself aware of the exact limits of its 
powers. None of them were solidly established or reg- 
ularly recognized. Its sphere was immense, but it trav- 
ersed it with uncertain step, groping its way through 
obscure and unknown paths. And that obscurity, which 
veiled the limits of its powers, and shrouded all its 
rights, favorable as it was to the encroachments of 
royalty, was likewise favorable to the defense of popu- 
lar freedom. 

With the consciousness of its recent rise and slender 
origin, the administration was invariably timid in the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 139 

face of obstacles. It is a striking sight to see, in 
the correspondence of the ministers and intendants of 
the eighteenth' century, how quickly this government, 
which was so overbearing and despotic when all was 
submission, lost its presence of mind at the first show 
of resistance, was alarmed by the mildest criticism, and 
terrified at the least noise. On these occasions it stop- 
ped short, hesitated, tried to compromise matters, and 
often withdrew from the contest at the sacrifice of a 
portion of its legitimate authority. Such was the course 
best suited to the weak selfishness of Louis XV. and 
the benevolence of his successor. These sovereigns, 
besides, never supposed for a moment that any one 
thought of dethroning them. They were strangers to 
the harshness and distrust which fear has since often 
planted in the hearts of rulers. They never perceived 
that they were trampling people under foot. 

Many of the prejudices, and privileges, and false no- 
tions which stood in the way of the foundation of 
wholesome liberty, encouraged in many minds a spirit 
of independence and even insubordination. 

The nobility held the government proper in supreme 
contempt, though they had occasional relations with 
its agents. Even after their power was gone, the 
nobles preserved some relic of the pride of their ances- 
tors, who rebelled alike against servitude and against 
law. They took no thought for the liberty of the 
masses, and willingly allowed the government to lay 
its hand heavily on them ; but they had no notion of 
submitting to it themselves, whatever resistance might 
cost. At the outbreak of the Kevolution, the language 
and tone of the nobility toward the king and his agents 



140 THE OLD REGIME 

were infinitely more haughty than those of the Third 
Estate, though the latter was on the point of overturn- 
ing the throne, by whose side the former were to fall. 
The nobility claim the invention of nearly all the guar- 
antees of the rights of the subject that were enjoyed 
during our thirty-seven years of representative govern- 
ment. Their old cahiers^ in spite of their errors and 
prejudices, breathe the spirit of a great aristocracy.' 
It will always be a subject of regret that the French 
nobility was destroyed and uprooted instead of being 
subjected to the control of the laws. The error de- 
prived the nation of a portion of its substance, and 
dealt liberty a wound that will never heal. The no- 
bility had been the first class in the kingdom, and had 
enjoyed undisputed greatness for so many centuries, 
that it had acquired a high-mindedness, a self-reliance, 
a sense of responsibility, which rendered it the most 
solid portion of the social frame. Virile itself, it im- 
parted virility to the other classes of society. Its ex- 
tirpation weakened its very assailants. It can never 
be wholly restored — can never revive of itself ; it may 
regain the titles and estates of its ancestors, but their 
spirit, never. 

The clergy, who have since been abjectly servile in 
civil matters to any and every temporal authority, and 
the most audacious flatterers of any monarch who con- 
descended to appear to favor the Church, were then 
the most independent body in the nation, the only one 
whose peculiar liberties were safe from assault. 

When the provinces had lost their franchises, and 
the city charters were a mere name, when ten nobles 
could not meet to discuss business without the ex- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 141 

press permission of the king, the French Church held 
its periodical assemblies just as usual. Nor were the 
several ecclesiastical authorities without fixed limits.^ 
Substantial guarantees shielded the lower clergy from 
the oppression of their superiors. No arbitrary pow- 
er in the hands of the bishop schooled them to passive 
obedience to the king. I have no intention of discuss- 
ing the old constitution of the Church ; I only observe 
that it did not teach the priests political servility. 

Many ecclesiastics, moreover, were men of rank, and 
carried with them into the Church the pride and in- 
tractabihty of their class. All held a high rank in the 
state, and enjoyed privileges. The very feudal rights 
which militated so gravely against the moral power of 
the Church, imparted to its individual members a feel- 
ing of independence toward the civil authority. 

Above all, the possession of real estate endowed 
the clergy with the feelings, and necessities, and opin- 
ions, and even the passions of citizens. I have had 
the patience to read most of the reports and debates 
of the old provincial assemblies, especially those of 
Languedoc, where the clergy took an unusual share in 
the details of government, and the reports of the pro- 
vincial assemblies which were held in 1779 and 1787; 
and, bringing to bear on these documents our modern 
ideas, I have been amazed to find bishops and abhes^ 
many of whom were as eminent in holiness as in learn- 
ing, report ably on the opening of a road or the con- 
struction of a canal, argue with knowledge and science 
on the best means of increasing the agricultural yield 
of lands, of improving the condition or developing the 
industry of the people, and prove themselves always 



142 THE OLD REGIME 

the equals, and often the superiors of the laymen with 
whom they were associated."^ 

I venture to think, in opposition to the generally re- 
ceived opinion, that systems which debar the Catholic 
clergy from the possession of landed property, and pro- 
vide for their remuneration in money, serve no inter- 
ests but those of the Papacy and the temporal power, 
and deprive the people of a very important element of 
liberty. 

For a man whose best qualities are under foreign 
control, and who can have no family in the land he in- 
habits, there can be but one substantial motive for 
patriotism — the ownership of real estate. Remove that 
motive, and he ceases to belong to any one place rather 
than another. A stranger to civil society, he lives 
where chance has planted him, without sharing any of 
the interests which surround him. His conscience is 
in the hands of the Pope, his livelihood in those of the 
sovereign. He has no country but the Church. In 
political troubles, he thinks of nothing but its dangers^ 
and its advancement. If it be free and prosperous, 
what matters the rest ? His normal political state is 
indifference. An excellent member of the Christian 
city, he is but a poor citizen of any other. Feelings 
and ideas such as his, in a body intrusted with the ed- 
ucation of youth and the censorship of morals, can not 
but enervate the national spirit for all the concerns of 
public life. 

To form a correct idea of the changes that can be 
wrought in men's minds by changes in their condition, 
one must read once more the cahiers presented by the 
clerical order in 1789, 



AND TllK KEVOLUTION. 143 

Thougli frequently intolerant, and sometimes obsti- 
nately wedded to their ancient privileges, the clergy 
gave proof on that occasion that they were as resolute 
foes to despotism and as stanch friends of civil and 
political liberty as the nobility or the Third Estate/^ 
They demanded that individual liberty should be se- 
cured, not by promises, but by a proceeding analogous 
in character to the writ of habeas corpus. They called 
for the destruction of state prisons, the abolition of 
unconstitutional courts and evocations, public debates, 
an irremovable judiciary ; the distribution of offices 
among all classes of citizens, and the adoption of merit 
as the sole test of eligibility ; a less oppressive and less 
ignominious recruiting system, to admit of no exemp- 
tions ; the commutation of all feudal rights, which, 
they said, being part of the feudal system, were inim- 
ical to liberty ; free labor ; the abolition of inland cus- 
tom-houses ; an increase in the number of private 
schools, until there was one, and that a free school, in 
each parish ; lay charitable institutions, such as work- 
houses, in the rural districts ; all sorts of encourage- 
ments to agriculture. 

So far as politics proper were concerned, they pro- 
claimed loudly that to the nation alone belonged the 
indefeasible and inalienable right of making laws and 
imposing taxes. JSTo Frenchman, they said, can be 
compelled to pay a tax which he did not vote either 
in person or by representative. They demanded free 
elections and annual meetings of the States-General, 
declared that it was their office to discuss all great 
public measures in presence of the nation, to make 
general laws which no special customs or privileges 



144 THE OLD REGIME 

could defeat, to vote supplies, and control even the 
king's houseliold. Thej insisted on the inviolability 
of the persons of deputies and the responsibility of min- 
isters. They also demanded the establishment of pro- 
vincial assemblies in every province and municipalities 
in every city. Of divine right not one word said they. 

I doubt whether, on the whole, even taking into 
account the startling vices of some of its members, 
the world ever saw a more remarkable body than the 
Catholic clergy at the time the Revolution broke out. 
They were enlightened ; they were national ; their 
private virtues were not more striking than their pub- 
lic qualities ; and yet they were largely endowed with 
faith, sufficient to bear them up against persecution. 
I began to study the old regime full of prejudice against 
the clergy; I have ended my task, and feel nothing 
but respect for them. They had no faults, in truth, 
but those which are inseparable from all corporations, 
whether political or religious, when they are solidly 
built and qlosely knit together, namely, a tendency to 
extension, an intolerant spirit, and an instinctive, and 
occasionally a blind devotion to the special interests 
of the corporate body. 

Nor were the middle classes of the old regime less 
superior to their modem successors in point of inde- 
pendence and spirit. Many of the very vices of their 
organization led to this result. It has already been 
mentioned that they were even more given to place- 
hunting, and that there were more places within their 
reach than there are now ; but mark the difference be- 
tween the two. Government could neither give nor 
take away these places. They increased the dignity 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 145 

of their incumbents, without in any way rendering 
them slaves to the ruling power. Thus the very cause 
of the servility of so many men to-day was formerly 
the most powerful motive for independence and self- 
respect. 

The immunities which, unhappily, divided the mid- 
dle and lower classes, converted the former into a spe- 
cies of sham aristocracy, and armed it occasionally with 
pride and a spirit of resistance worthy of the genuine. 
The public good was often forgotten in the little pri- 
vate cliques which they formed; but the clique in- 
terests never. ^ There were common privileges, there 
was a corporate dignity to be defended, and there was 
no chance of concealment for the complaisant coward. 
People were, so to speak, actors on a very small but 
uncommonly conspicuous stage, with the same audi- 
ence always before them, and always ready to applaud 
or hiss. 

The art of stifling the sound of resistance was not 
brought to such perfection as it has been since. France 
was not so well deafened as it is in our day. It was, 
on the contrary, well adapted for the transmission of 
sound, and, though no political liberty could be seen, 
one had only to speak loud to be heard at a great dis- 
tance. 

The oppressed were secured a hearing in the courts 
of justice. The political and administrative institu- 
tions of the country were those of a despotism, but we 
were still a free people in our courts of law. The ad- 
ministration of justice under the old regime was cum- 
brous, complicated, slow, and costly — grave faults, no 
doubt ; but it was never servile to the supreme power ; 

G 



146 THE OLD REGIME 

and this is the very worst form of venality. That cap- 
ital vice, which not only corrupts the jndge, but soon 
infects the whole body of the people, was unknown in 
the old courts. Judges were not only irremovable, but 
looked for no promotion ; both conditions are essential 
to independence, for the power of punishing may be 
dispensed with if that of rewarding be retained. 

True, the royal authority had stripped the common 
courts of their jurisdiction over cases in which the gov- 
ernment was interested, but it had not stripped them 
of their terrors. They might be prevented from judg- 
ing cases, but they could not be hindered from receiv- 
ing complaints and expressing their opinions. And as 
the judicial idiom had preserved the plain simplicity 
of the old French tongue, which called things by their 
right names, it was not uncommon for judges to quali- 
fy the measures of the government with such epithets 
as arbitrary and despotic. 3^ The irregular interference 
of the courts in the administration of government, 
which often proved a hindrance to the transaction of 
business, occasionally served as a safeguard of liberty; 
the greater evil was limited by the lesser. 

In the heart of the magistracy and around it, the 
new ideas of the day had not wholly crushed out the 
vigorous habits of thought of olden time. No doubt the 
Parliaments thought more ,of themselves than of the 
public good ; but still, when it was necessary to defend 
their independence and their honor, they were always 
intrepid, and gave heart to all who surrounded them. 

When the Parliament of Paris was dissolved in 1770, 
every one of the magistrates who composed it submit- 
ted to the loss of rank and power rather than yield to 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 147 

the king. More than this: courts of another kind, 
such as the Court of Aids {cour des aides), which were 
neither assailed nor menaced, voluntarily exposed them- 
selves to the same fate when that fate had become a 
matter of certainty. Nor was even this all. The lead- 
ing advocates who had practiced before the Parliament 
spontaneously shared its fate. They resigned glory 
and profit, and preferred silence to pleading before a 
dishonored magistracy. I know of nothing grander 
than this in the history of any free people ; and yet 
this took place in the eighteenth century, close to Louis 
the Fifteenth's court. 

The nation had borrowed many habits from the 
courts. It was from the courts that we learned the 
only portion of the education of a free people which we 
owe to the old regime, that is to say, the principle that 
all decisions should be preceded by discussion, and sub- 
ject to appeal; the use of publicity, and the love of 
forms. The government itself had borrowed largely 
from the language and usages of the courts. The king 
felt bound to assign reasons for his edicts ; the Coun- 
cil's Orders were preceded by long preambles, in- 
tendants notified the public of their ordinances by the 
ministry of bailiffs. All the old administrative bodies, 
such as the Treasury Board, and the select-men, trans- 
acted business publicly, and heard rival petitioners or 
applicants by counsel. All their habits and forms were 
so many barriers against the arbitrary power of the 
sovereign. But the people proper, especially in the 
rural districts, had no means of resisting oppression 
except by violence. 

Most of the means of defense I have just pointed 



148 THE OLD EEGIME 

out were beyond their reach ; no one could avail him- 
self of them unless his position in society was such 
that he could make himself seen and heard. But out- 
side the ranks of the people, any one in France who 
had the courage might, if he chose, yield a condition- 
ed obedience, and resist even while he yielded. 

The king addressed the nation in the language of a 
chief, not a master. At the commencement of the 
reign of Louis XVI., the monarch declared in the pre- 
amble of an edict, "We glory in commanding a free 
and generous nation." One of his ancestors had ex- 
pressed the same idea in older style, when, on thank- 
ing the States-General for the boldness of their remon- 
strances, he exclaimed, " We had rather speak to free- 
men than to slaves." 

The men of the eighteenth century were strangers 
to that passionate love for ease which is the mother 
of servitude ; which, equally tame and tenacious, com- 
bines with several of the private virtues, such as fam- 
ily affection, regular habits, respect for religion, luke- 
warm but assiduous devotional habits ; which toler- 
ates honesty, and justifies heroism, and is remarkably 
successful in producing respectable men and cowardly 
citizens. They were better and worse. 

The French of those days loved merriment and 
adored pleasure ; their habits were perhaps more ir- 
regular, their passions and ideas more disorderly than 
those of their descendants, but they were strangers to 
the modern and decent sensuality of our day. Per- 
sons in the higher classes sought ornament rather than 
comfort, honor rather than money. Comfort did not 
even absorb the attention of the middle classes ; more 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 149 

delicate and higher enjoyments were constantly sought 
in preference. Money was never the great end of life. 
''I know my countrymen," proudly wrote a contem- 
porary; " skilled in melting and scattering the metals, 
they are not calculated to worship them, and are quite 
prepared to return to their old idols, valor, glory, and, 
I will add, magnanimity." 

Care must be taken not to measure the baseness of 
men by their degree of submission to the sovereign 
power : that gauge would be a false one. Submissive 
as the men of the old regime were to the will of the 
king, they were strangers to submission of another 
kind ; they had not learned to bow the knee to ille- 
gitimate or disputed authority, which inspires not hon- 
or, but contempt, and secures submission through the 
fear of injury or the hope of reward. That degrading- 
form of servitude was unknown in olden time. The 
king inspired feelings such as no absolute monarch of 
later times has ever been able to awaken, and which 
the Eevolution so thoroughly uprooted that we can 
hardly understand them. They loved him like a fa- 
ther, and respected him as they respected their God. 
When they submitted to his arbitrary commands, it 
was less from compulsion than from love, and their 
soul often remained their own, even in a state of com- 
plete subjection. For them, the greatest evil of obe- 
dience was constraint ; it is the least in our time. The 
greatest evil now is the servility which prompts obedi- 
ence. Let us beware how we despise our ancestors ; 
we have no right to do so. Would to God that we 
could recover, even with their faults and their preju- 
dices, a little of theu' greatness. 



150 THE OLD REGIME 

It would tlien "be an error to consider the old re- 
gime as a period of servility and dependence. There 
was much more liberty then than there is now,^ ^ but 
it was an irregular and intermittent kind of liberty, 
bound up with the class system and notions of privi- 
leges and exemptions — a sort of liberty which encour- 
aged rebellion against law as well as against oppres- 
sion, and always left a portion of the people destitute 
of the most natural and obvious safeguards. Yet, 
stunted and deformed as it was, it was fertile. It was 
to that liberty that so many individuals owed the pres- 
ervation of their natural character, with its color and 
outline, when centralization was laboring to reduce the 
character of the whole nation to a dead level and one 
uniform line. It was that which kept self-respect alive, 
and often raised the love of glory above all other pas- 
sions. It was that which formed those vigorous souls, 
those proud and bold geniuses, whose appearance on 
the scene we are soon to witness, and who made the 
French Revolution alike the admiration and the terror 
of subsequent generations. It would be strange in- 
deed if such masculine virtues as theirs had been 
brought to light in a land where liberty was unknown. 

But if this disorderly and unwholesome sort of liber- 
ty prepared the French to overthrow despotism, it un- 
fitted them, to an unexampled degree, perhaps, for re- 
placing it by the peaceful and free government of law. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 151 



CHAPTER Xn. 

HOW THE COTJTDITION OF THE FRENCH PEASAJJTRY WAS WORSE i:> 
SOME RESPECTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY THAN IT HAB BEEN 
IN THE THIRTEENTH, NOTWITHSTANDING THE PROGRESS OF CIV- 
ILIZATION, 

IN the eighteenth centiuy, the French peasantry 
were no longer a prey to small feudal despots. 
They rarely suffered violence at the hands of govern- 
ment. They enjoyed civil liberty and possessed land; 
but they were shunned hj all the other classes of socie- 
ty and led a life of unexampled isolation. The conse- 
quences of this new and singTdar form of oppression 
deserve to be examined separately and with some at- 
tention. 

At the very beginning of the seventeenth century, 
Henry TV. complained, says Perefix, that the nobility 
were deserting the rural districts. The desertion had 
become general by the middle of the eighteenth : all the 
documents of the time — treatises on political economy, 
intendants' correspondence, reports of agricultural soci- 
eties — concur in deploring the fact. It is, moreover, 
indisputably proved by the capitation registers. The 
capitation-tax was levied at the actual place of resi- 
dence of the taxable : all the great and a portion of the 
lesser nobility paid it at Paris. 

'No men of rank remained in the country districts 
but those whose means did not allow them to move. 
A man of this class was strangely situate among the 



152 THE OLD KEGIME 

peasantry. He Was no longer their ruler, and had no 
reasons for conciliating, or aiding, or guiding them, 
while, on the other hand, he did not share their burdens, 
and consequently felt no sympathy for sufferings which 
did not afflict him, or for wrongs to which he was a 
stranger. Though they had ceased to be his subjects, 
he had not become their fellow-citizen. The position 
is without parallel in history. 

There resulted from it a sort of absenteeism of heart, 
if I may use the expression, which was even more ef- 
fective than absenteeism of body. The man of rank 
who resided on his estate often thought and acted as 
his steward would have done in his absence. He 
viewed his tenants merely in the light of debtors, and 
rigorously exacted from them his full due according to 
law, thus rendering the remains of the feudal system 
harder to bear than its entirety had formerly been.^ ^ 

He was often in involved and needy circumstances, 
and lived meanly in his chateau, his main thought be- 
ing how he could save money for the winter at Paris. 
With their peculiar directness of mind, the people gave 
him the name of the least of all birds of prey ; they 
called him the hobby. 

There were individual exceptions, ot course; but 
history regards classes only. No one denies that there 
were at this time many rich landowners who concerned 
themselves for the welfare of the peasantry, without 
being compelled to do so by duty or interest ; but 
these were rebels against the law of their condition, 
which, in spite of themselves, enjoined indifference on 
the one side and hatred on the other. 

It has been common to ascribe the general desertion 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 153 

of the country parts by tKe nobility to tlie policy of 
particular kings or ministers : some have traced it to 
Richelieu, others to Louis XIV. During the last three 
centuries of the monarchy it certainly was the aim of 
the monarchs to keep the nobility apart from the peo- 
ple, and to attract the former to the court. That aim 
was pursued with especial vigor in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, when the nobility were still feared by the kings. 
One of the questions addressed to intendants was, 
"Do the noblemen of your province prefer remaining 
there, or leaving their homes ?" The answer of one 
intendant regretted that in his province men of rank 
preferred the company of mere peasants to the society 
of the court and their duty to the king. The prov- 
ince of which this was said was Anjou, which after- 
ward became La Vendee. These noblemen, who were 
said to be slow to perform their duty to the king, were 
the only ones who defended the French monarchy in 
the field, and died for it ; they owed this glorious dis- 
tinction solely to their influence over the peasantry, 
among whom they were censured for preferring to re- 
side. 

Care must be taken, however, not to ascribe the 
migration of the nobility into the capital to the direct 
influence of this or that king. The true and principal 
cause of the phenomenon lay not in the policy of in- 
' dividuals, but in the slow, unceasing operation of in- 
stitutions ; this is proved by the utter incapacity of 
the government to arrest the mischief, when in the 
eighteenth century it was so minded. When the no- 
bility lost, irretrievably, their political rights, and the 
local franchises were taken away, the migration be- 
G2 



154 THE OLD regimp: 

came universal. No stimulus was required to wean 
the nobles from the country ; they had no wish to 
stay there : rural life had no charms for them. 

What I have said of the nobility applies equally to 
rich landowners in general. Centralization stripped 
the rural districts of their rich and enlightened inhab- 
itants. I might explain how, moreover, it prevented 
agriculture from arriving at perfection ; for, as Mon- 
tesquieu profoundly observes, "The. yield of land de- 
pends less on its fertility than on the freedom of its ^ 
occupants." But I do not wish to digress. 

We have seen already how the middle classes de- 
serted the country parts and took refuge in cities. 
Nothing is better established by the documents of "the 
old regime. One rarely sees, say they,- more than one 
generation of rich peasants. The moment a farmer 
acquires a little property, he takes his son from the 
plow, sends him into the city, and buys him some 
small office. Hence arose the strange dislike which 
farmers even still seem to feel for the calling which 
has enriched them. The effect has outlived the cause. 

In fact, the only well-bred man, or, as the English 
would say, the only gentleman who lived permanently 
among the peasantry, and associated with them, was 
the parish curate ; and the curate would have become 
the master of the rural classes, in spite of Yoltaire, 
had he not been so notoriously connected v/ith the po- 
litical hierarchy, whose odium he shared together with 
its privileges. '^ 

The peasant, then, was widely separated from the 
upper classes of society. He was kept aloof from all 
who could help or guide him. The higher his fellows 



AND THE JiEVOLUTION. 155 

rose in influence and station, the more they avoided 
him. He seemed to have been picked out of the whole 
nation, and set aside. 

No such state of things existed in any other great 
nation of civilized Europe, nor had it been of long 
duration in France. The peasant of the fourteenth 
century was liable to more oppression, but he had bet- 
ter claims to assistance. If the aristocracy tyrannized 
over him occasionally, they never abandoned him. 

Villages in the eighteenth century were assemblages 
of poor, ignorant, and coarse persons ; with unskilled 
magistrates, universally despised ; with a syndic who 
could not read ; with a collector who could not add up 
the accounts on which his neighbors' and his own for- 
tune depended. Their old seigniors, despoiled of their 
authority, had come to consider it degrading to be con- 
cerned in their government. They viewed the distri- 
bution of the taille, the militia levy, the reg-ulation of 
coTvees, as servile duties only fit for a syndic. No 
one but the central power paid any attention to village 
affairs ; and, as it was distant, and had nothing to fear 
from the villagers, it noticed them no further than was 
necessary to get money from them. 

See, now, what became of this forsaken class, over 
which no .one tried to tyrannize, but which no one tried 
to aid or enlighten. 

The weightiest of the feudal burdens had certainly 
been lightened or removed, but they had been succeed- 
ed by others perhaps even more oppressive. Peasants 
were relieved from many grievances which had afflicted 
their ancestors, but they endured sufferings which the 
latter had never known. 



156 THE OLD EEGIME 

It is notorious that the increase of the taille — tenfold 
in two centuries — fell wholly on the agricultural class- 
es. A word must be said here of the manner in which 
it was levied in the country, in order to show what bar- 
barous laws may be established or maintained in a civ- 
ilized age, when the leading minds of the nation have 
no personal interest in changing them. 

I find a sketch of the taille, in a confidential circular 
of the comptroller-general to the intendants, dated 1772. 
It is a masterpiece of accuracy and brevity. " In the 
greater part of the kingdom," says the minister, "the 
taille is arbitrarily distributed and levied, under a joint 
and several responsibility, on the persons of taxables 
and not on property; it varies constantly in conse- 
quence of the fluctuations in the means of those who 
pay it." That is the w^iole story ; impossible to sketch 
with more art the lucrative evil. 

The sum to be paid by each parish was fixed year- 
ly. As the minister observed, it varied incessantly, so 
that the farmer could never tell how much he would 
have to pay from year to year. In each parish a peas- 
ant was chosen at haphazard every year, and appoint- 
ed collector ; it was his business to distribute the tax 
among his fellow-parishioners. 

I promised to describe the office of collector. Listen 
to the Provincial Assembly of Guienne: it is an impar- 
tial witness, being wholly composed of persons who are 
exempt in virtue of royal appointments. It declared 
in 1779 : " As no one is willing to take the office 
of collector, it must be held alternately by every one.. 
Hence the tax is levied every year by a new collector, 
about whose capacity and honesty no inquiry is made. 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 157 

The tax levy is what might be expected : it bears the 
mark of the collector's fears, his weaknesses, or his 
vices. How could it be otherwise ? He is wholly in 
the dark. Who can tell the exact income of his neigh- 
bor, or the proportion it bears to that of others ? Yet 
the collector is bound to decide the exact amount of 
each ; and for the proceeds of the tax his property and 
his person are liable. He usually loses half his time, 
for two years, in running after the tax-payers. Those 
who can not read are obliged to find a neighbor to take 
their place." 

A short while before, Turgot had said of another 
province, " The post of collector often drives its incum- 
bent to despair, and nearly always ruins him. In eacK 
village, all the families in easy circumstances are thus 
successively reduced to poverty." 

The unfortunate individual was, however, armed 
with prodigious power — a tyrant as well as a martyr. 
While he was ruining himself, he held the fortune of 
every one else in his hands. In the language of the 
provincial assembly, "Family affection, personal friend- 
ships and spites, a desire for vengeance, a wish to con- 
ciliate, fears of displeasing a rich man who has work 
to give — all these render it almost impossible that he 
can discharge his duties justly." Fear often made the 
collector pitiless. In some parishes he did not show 
his face without a band of bailiffs and followers at his 
back. "Unless he is backed by bailiffs," writes an 
intendant in 1764, "the taxables will not pay." "At 
Villefranche alone," says the provincial assembly 
quoted above, " six hundred bailiffs and followers are 
always kept on foot."® 



158 THE OLD EEGIME 

To escape this violent and arbitrary taxation, the 
French peasant of the eighteenth century imitated the 
Jew of the Middle Ages. He assumed the garb of 
poverty if he was accidentally in easy circumstances ; 
the idea of a competency terrified him. I find this 
proved by a document which does not date from Gui- 
enne, but from a hundred leagues from thence. The 
Agricultural Society of Maine announced in its report 
of 1761 that it had intended to distribute cattle as 
prizes, but had " abandoned the design from apprehen- 
sions that the distribution of such prizes might awaken 
jealousies which the arbitrary mode of distributing 
the taxes might enable defeated competitors to gratify 
in future years." 

This system of taxation trained every one, in fact, 
to spy out his neighbors, and denounce to the collector 
their progress toward affluence : all were educated to 
be informers and natural enemies. What more would 
one expect to hear of the dominions of a rajah of Hin- 
dostan ? 

There were parts of France, however, where the 
taxes were uniform and mild ; these were some of the 
jpays d'etatsS It is true that these provinces had re- 
served the right of taxing themselves. In Languedoc, 
for instance, the taille bore wholly on landed property, 
and did not vary with the owner's means. Every 
thirty years the whole province was divided into three 
classes of lands, according to fertility, and the propor- 
tion to be borne by each estate was carefully fixed and 
recorded in a register. Every one knew beforehand 
precisely how much he had to pay. If he failed to pay, 
he, or rather his land, was alone responsible. If he felt 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 159 

aggrieved by the levy, lie had the right of demanding 
a comparison of his quota with that of any other resi- 
dent of the parish he chose to select, by the process 
we now call an " appeal for proportionate equality." 

It will be seen that this system is precisely the one 
which we pursue to-day ; it has been extended to the 
whole country without alteration. It is worthy of 
remark, that while we have borrowed from the old re- 
gime the form of our public administration, we have 
abstained from imitating it in other respects. Our 
administrative methods are copied from those of the 
old provinces. We have taken the machine, but re- 
jected its product. 

-^ The habitual poverty of the country people had 
given rise to maxims well calculated to keep them poor. 
Hichelieu, in his Political Testament, says, " If the 
people were well off, it would be difficult to restrain 
them within legal bounds." Eulers in the eighteenth 
century did not go quite so far, but they believed the 
peasant would not work without the spur of need; 
misery appeared to them the only safeguard against 
idleness. I have heard the very same theory advanced 
in reference to the negroes in our colonies. So gen- 
eral has this belief been, that most political economists 
have felt it necessary to refute it at length. 

It is well known that the primitive object of the 
taille was to enable the king to hire soldiers in lieu of 
the nobles and vassals who were bound to service; 
yet in the seventeenth century the military service was 
again exacted, as has been mentioned, under the name 
of militia, and this time the burden fell wholly upon 
the people, and almost exclusively on the peasantry. 



160 THE OLD REGIME 

That militia duty was often strenuously refused or 
evaded is well established by the immense number of 
police reports referring to the apprehension of refrac- 
tory militia-men or deserters that are to be found in 
every intendant's office. It was, it seems, the most 
odious of all the burdens that were laid on the peas- 
antry. They fled into the woods to avoid serving, or 
resisted the levies with force of arms. This appears 
surprising in view of the ease with which a system of 
compulsory conscription is enforced to-day. 

The intense aversion which the old regime peasant- 
ry felt for the militia system was due less to the prin- 
ciple of the law than to the manner in which it was 
executed ; to the length of time during which the risk 
hung over men's heads (a man was liable till he was 
forty, unless he married) ; to the arbitrary revision of 
the lots, which often made a good number as fatal as a 
bad one ; to the legal impossibility of procuring a sub- 
stitute ; to the disgust inspired by a hard, dangerous 
vocation, in which it was wholly impossible to rise; 
but, above all, to the reflection that this great burden 
bore on them alone, and on the most wretched individ- 
uals among them. The ignominious distinction estab- 
lished between them and other classes imbittered their 
actual wrongs. 

I have examined the reports of several drawings for 
militia-men, in various parishes, in the year 1769. The 
exempts are enumerated : one is the servant of a gen- 
tleman ; another, watchman at an abbey ; a third is only 
valet of a burgher, it is true, but his master "lives no- 
bly." No one, as a rule, was exempt but persons in 
easy circumstances. When a farmer, for instance, paid 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 161 

heavy taxes for several years, his sons were exempt : 
this was called encouraging agriculture. Political econ- 
omists, much as they admired equality in other mat- 
ters, made no objection to this privilege; they only de- 
sired to extend it to other cases, or, in other words, to 
increase the burden of the poorest and most unprotect- 
ed peasantry. One of them observes that " soldiers are 
so badly paid, so poorly lodged, dressed, and fed, and 
kept in such strict dependence, that it would be too cruel 
to choose them out of any class but the very lowest." 

Up to the close of the reign of Louis XIV. the high- 
roads were not repaired at all, or were kept in repair at 
the cost of the state and of the road-side landowners : 
it was at that period that the plan of keeping them in 
repair at the expense of the peasantry, by corvees, was 
first commenced. It seemed so excellent a mode of 
securing good roads without paying for them, that in 
1737 a circular of Comptroller-general Orry applied it 
to the whole of France. Intendants were authorized 
to imprison refractory peasants, or to send bailiffs for 
them.& 

Thenceforth, measurably with the extension of trade 
and the desire for good roads, corvees were extended 
and increased.^ A report made in 1779 to the Pro- 
vincial Assembly of Berry states that the annual value 
of labor performed by the peasantry in corvees in that 
poor province was 700,000 livres. A similar estimate 
was made for lower Normandy in 1787. ISTo better 
indication of the sad condition of the country-people 
could be found. Social progress enriched all other 
classes of society, but impoverished the peasantry. 
Civilization was a blessing to all but them. 



162 THE OLD KEGIME 

It is stated in the correspondence of the intendants 
about the same period, that the peasantry must not 
Ibe allowed to perform their regular corvees on private 
roads, for they are all required on the highways, or, as 
the phrase was, on the king's highway. ^ The strange 
notion that the cost of keeping the roads in repair ought 
to be borne by the poorest persons in the community, 
and those who travel the least — new as it was — took 
such root in the minds of those who were gainers by 
it, that they soon came to believe that no other sys- 
tem was feasible. An attempt was made in 1776 to 
commute corvees for a tax payable in money : the new 
tax was as unequally distributed as the old imposi- 
tion. 

Corvees, on ceasing to be seigniorial and becoming 
royal, were gradually applied to all public works. In 
1719 they were exacted for the construction of bar- 
racks. ' ' The parishes must send their best workmen,''^ 
said the ordinance, '^and give up all other work for 
this.'''' Corvees were exacted for the conveyance of con- 
victs to the galleys,^ and of beggars to charitable insti- 
tutions; for the removal of military baggage from place 
to place, when troops were moved. ^ This was no slight 
task at a time when every regiment was encumbered 
with heavy baggage: it was requisite to gather from 
the neighborhood for many miles around an immense 
number of carts and oxen. This kind of compulsory 
labor, which was hardly felt at first, became a very 
heavy burden when the standing armies became large. 
I have seen pressing demands from contractors, insist- 
ing on the employment of corvees for the conveyance 
of timber from the forests to ship-yards.™ Labor of 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 163 

this description was usually remunerated, but the price 
was low and unalterable. This ill-advised imposition 
sometimes became so burdensome as to frighten the 
receivers of the taille. In 1751 a receiver was appre- 
hensive lest ''the expense to which the peasantry were 
put for the repairs of the roads would incapacitate them 
from paying the taille." 

Could these oppressive measures have been carried 
into eifect if beside the peasantry there had stood rich 
and enlightened men, with the will and the power, if 
not to protect them, at least to intercede on their be- 
half with the master, who held the fortune of rich and 
poor alike in his hand ? 

I have read a letter, written in 1774 by a wealthy 
landholder to the provincial intendant on the subject 
of opening a road. The road, says he, would insure 
the prosperity of the village, and he explains why ; 
then he recommends the establishment of a fair, which 
could not fail to double the price of produce ; and, 
lastly, this excellent citizen advises the foundation of 
a school, with some small help from government, as 
the best method of procuring industrious subjects for 
the king. None of these ideas had occurred to him 
until he had been confined a couple of years by a let- 
tre de cachet in his chateau. " It is my exile on my 
estate," he adds ingenuously, "which has convinced 
me of the extreme utility of all these projects." 

It was especially in time of scarcity that observers 
noticed the rupture of the old bonds of patronage and 
dependence which had formerly linked the great land- 
'Owners and the peasantry together. At these critical 
periods the central government was terrified by a con- 



164 THE OLD REGIME 

sciousness of its weakness. It tried to recall to life 
the individual influences or tlie political associations it 
had destroyed, but they gave no sign, and it saw with 
surprise that the people it had killed were really dead. 

When the suffering was very great, especially in 
the poorer provinces, some intendants, like Turgot, is- 
sued illegal ordinances, compelling the rich landown- 
ers to feed their peasantry till the harvest came round. 
I have seen letters from several curates, dated 1770, 
advocating the taxation of the richest landowners of 
their parishes, laymen and ecclesiastics alike — " men 
who own large estates, on which they never reside, 
and which only serve to give them an 'income which 
they spend elsewhere." 

Villages were always infested with beggars, for, as 
Letronne remarks, the poor are relieved m the cities, 
but in the country, especially in winter, there is no one 
to help them, and they have no choice but to beg. 

These unfortunate people were sometimes furious- 
ly persecuted. The Duke of Choiseul undertook m 
1767 to put down mendicity throughout France. The 
intendant's correspondence bears witness to the rigor 
with which he proceeded. Orders were given to the 
police to arrest simultaneously all the beggars in the 
kingdom: it is said they seized fifty thousand. All 
able-bodied vagabonds were sent to the galleys ; for 
the others, some forty poor-houses were opened m vari- 
ous parts of the kingdom. It would have answered 
better to have opened the hearts of the rich. 

The government of the old regime, which was so 
mild and so timid, so fond of formalities and delays 
in dealing with the upper classes, was often rough and 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 165 

always prompt in dealing with the lower, especially 
with the peasantry, I have never been able to dis- 
cover, in all the documents I have examined, a single 
instance where a burgher was arrested by order of an 
intendant, but peasants were arrested daily for corvees, 
militia duty, mendicity, and a thousand other matters. 
One class was entitled to be judged by an independent 
tribunal, after a long and public hearing; the other 
was dragged before the police magistrate {prevot), who 
decided summarily and without appeal. "^ 

" The immense distance which separates the people 
from other classes of society," says ISTecker in 1785, 
" tends to divert attention from the manner in which 
power may be used against individuals. Were it not 
for the gentleness and humanity of the French char- 
acter, and the spirit of the age, the subject would be 
an endless source of sorrow to those who can sympa- 
thize with sufferings which they do not share." 

But the oppressive character of the system was 
more conspicuous in the improvement it prevented 
than m the injury it caused. Free, and landholders 
as they were, the peasantry were almost as ignorant as, 
and often more wretched than the serfs their ancestors. 
In the midst of a prodigious development of art and 
science, they made no industrial progress ; they re- 
mained dark and uncivilized in a world that glittered 
with intelligence. They had never learned to use the 
quickness and keenness of their race ; they could not 
even succeed in their own calling — agriculture. A 
celebrated English agricultural writer described what 
he saw as being "farms dating from the tenth cen- 
tury." They excelled in nothing but warfare ; for, as 



166 THE OLD REGIME 

soldiers, thej could not help mingling with other so- 
cial classes. 

Such was the depth of wretchedness and solitude 
in which the French peasantry were hermetically seal- 
ed. I was surprised and almost alarmed by discov- 
ering that, less than twenty years before the Cath- 
olic faith was abolished without resistance and the 
churches profaned, the government often adopted the 
following method of ascertaining the population of a 
canton : the curates reported the number of communi- 
cants at Easter ; to this an approximate figure was 
added for children under age and sick persons ; and 
the total was assumed to be the exact population. Yet 
the ideas of the time, strangely altered and disguised, 
were making their way into the peasant's mind by de- 
vious and crooked channels, though nothing of them 
appeared on the surface. Manners, customs, belief — 
all were unchanged : the peasant was not only resign- 
ed, he was in good spirits. 

Care must be taken not to misunderstand the gaye- 
ty which the French have often exliibited in the great- 
est affliction. It is a mere attempt to divert the mind 
from the contemplation of misfortune which seems 
inevitable ; it by no means indicates insensibility. 
Throw open a door by which these men may escape 
from the misery which they appear to bear so lightly, 
and they will rush through it with such force as to 
pass over any obstacle that stands in the way, without 
even noticing it. 

We see these things very plainly from our point of 
view, but they were hidden from contemporaneous ob- 
servers. The upper classes never easily read the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 167 

mind of their inferiors, and least of all of the peasantry. 
Their education and their social habits endow the lat- 
ter with habits of judging which are peculiar to them- 
selves, and which other classes do not acquire; and 
when rich and poor have no interests, or grievances, or 
business in common, the obscurity which wraps their 
respective minds becomes impenetrable ; they may live 
side by side for centuries without understanding each 
other. It is curious to note the astonishing feeling of 
security which pervaded the upper and middle classes 
of society at the time the Revolution began, to hear 
their ingenious lucubrations on the virtues of the peo- 
ple, on their gentleness, their affectionate disposition, 
their innocent pleasures, when '93 is close at hand. 
A ridiculous, but a terrible spectacle I 

Let us stop here, before proceeding further, and ob- 
serve, through all the small facts I have noticed, one 
of the greatest of God's laws for the government of 
society. 

The French nobility will not mix witt the other 
classes. Men of rank succeed in throwing oif all their 
public burdens. They fancy that by doing so they 
may preserve their rank without its troublesome ap- 
pendages, and at first sight it really seems they can ; 
but before long an internal disease assails them, and 
reduces them gradually. They grow poorer as their 
privileges multiply. The middle classes, from which 
they had taken such care to keep aloof, grow rich and 
enlightened beside them, without them, in spite of 
them. The very men they had refused to accept as 
associates or fellow-citizens are about to become their 
rivals, their enemies, and, ere long, their masters. 



168 THE OLD KEGIME 

Though thej have been relieved from the responsibil- 
ity of guiding, protecting, assisting their vassals, they 
estimate that they have lost nothing, because their 
titles and their pecuniary privileges still remain in- 
tact. As they are still the first men in the country in 
rank, they persuade themselves that they still hold 
rule ; and, in fact, they are still surrounded by those 
whom in notarial acts they style ''their subjects," 
while others are their vassals, their tenants, their farm- 
ers. But, in reality, they govern no one. They stand 
quite alone, and from the blow that threatens to over- 
whelm them, their only resource will be in flight. 

Though the career of the nobility and that of the 
middle classes had differed widely, there was one point 
of resemblance between them : both had kept them- 
selves aloof from the people. Instead of uniting with 
the peasantry, the middle classes had shrunk from the 
contact of their miseries ; instead of joining them to 
combat the principle of inequality of ranks, they had 
only sought to aggravate the injustice of their position: 
they had been as eager for exceptional rights as the no- 
bility for privileges. Themselves sprung from the ranks 
of the peasantry, they had so lost all recollection and 
knowledge of their former character, that it was not tiU 
they had armed the peasants that they perceived they 
had roused passions which they could neither gauge, 
guide, nor restrain, and of which they were destined to 
be the victims as well as the authors. 

The ruin of the great house of France, which once 
promised to spread over the whole Continent, will ai- 
rways be a subject of wonder, but no careful student of 
its history can fail to comprehend its fall. With few 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 169 

exceptions, all the vices, all the errors, all the fatal prej- 
udices which I have sketched, owed either their ori- 
gin, or their continuance, or their development to the 
exertions made by most of our kings to create distinc- 
tions of classes in order to govern more absolutely. 

But when the work was complete — when the nobil- 
ity were isolated from the middle classes, and both 
from the peasantry — when each class contained a va- 
riety of small private associations, each as distinct from 
the others as the classes themselves, the whole nation, 
though homogeneous, was composed of parts that did 
not hold together. There was no organization that 
could resist the government, but there was none that 
could assist it. So it was that, the moment the ground- 
work moved, the whole edifice of the French monarchy 
gave way and fell with a crash. 

Nor did the people, in taking advantage of the faults 
of their masters, and throwing off their yoke, wholly 
succeed in eradicating the false notions, the vicious hab- 
its, the bad propensities these masters had either im- 
parted or allowed them to acquire. They have at 
times used liberty like slaves, and shown themselves 
to be as incapable of self-government as they were void 
of pity for their old teachers. 

I shall now pursue my subject, and, losing sight of 
the ancient and general predisposing causes of the great 
revolution, pass to some specific facts of more recent 
date, which determined finally its locality, its origin, 
and its character. 

H 



170 THE OLD EEGIME 



CHAPTER XIIL 

HOW, TOWARD THE MIDDLE OP THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY, LITEE- 
ARr MEN BECAME THE LEADING- POLITICIANS OP THE COUNTRY, 
AND OF THE EFPECTS THEREOF. 

FRANCE liad long been the most literary nation 
of Europe, but her men of letters had never ex- 
hibited the' mental peculiarities, or occupied the rank 
which distinguished them in the eighteenth century. 
Nothing of the kind had ever been witnessed either 
here or abroad. 

They took no part in public business, as English 
authors did ; on the contrary, they had never lived so 
much out of the world. They held no public office, 
and, though society teemed with functionaries, they had 
no public functions to discharge. 

But they were not strangers to politics, or wholly 
absorbed in abstract philosophy and belles-lettres, as 
most of the German literary men were. They paid 
sedulous, and, indeed, special attention to the subject 
of government. They were to be heard day after day 
discoursing of the origin and primitive form of society, 
of the primordial rights of the governed and governing 
power, of the natural and artificial relations of men one 
to the other, of the soundness or the errors of the pre- 
vailing customs, of the principles of the laws. They 
made thorough inquiries into the Constitution, and 
criticised its structure and general plan. They did 
not invariably devote particular or profound studies to 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 171 

these great problems. Many merely glanced at them 
in passing, often playfully, but none omitted them al- 
together. Abstract and literary views on political sub- 
jects are scattered throughout the works of that day ; 
from the ponderous treatise to the popular song, none 
are wholly devoid of this feature. 

The political systems of these writers were so va- 
ried that it would be wholly impossible to reconcile 
them together, and mould them all into a theory of 
government. 

Still, setting details aside, and looking only to main 
principles, it is readily discerned that all these authors 
concurred in one central point, from whence their par- 
ticular notions diverged. They all started with the 
principle that it was necessary to substitute simple 
and elementary rules, based on reason and natural law, 
for the complicated and traditional customs which reg- 
ulated society in their time. 

It will be ascertained, on close inquiry, that the 
whole of the political philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
tury is really comprised in that single notion. 

It was not new. For three thousand years it had 
been floating backward and forward through the minds 
of men without finding a resting-place. How was it 
that it contrived to engross the attention of all the au- 
thors of the day just at this time ? How did it hap- 
pen that, instead of lying buried in the brain of phi- 
losophers, as it had done so often, it became so absorb- 
ing a passion among the masses, that idlers were daily 
heard discussing abstract theories on the nature of 
human society, and the imaginations of women and 
peasants were fired by notions of new systems ? How 



172 THE OLD REGIME 

cam^ it that literary men, without rank, or honors, or 
riches, or responsibility, or power, monopolized politi- 
cal authority, and found themselves, though strangers 
to the government, the only leading politicians of the 
day ? I desire to answer these queries briefly, and to 
show how facts which seem to belong to the history 
of our literature alone exercised an influence over our 
revolution that was both extraordinary and terrible, 
and is still felt in our time. 

It was not chance which led the philosophers of the 
eighteenth century to advocate principles so opposed 
to those on which society rested in their day. They 
were naturally suggested by the spectacle they had 
before them. They had constantly in view a host of 
absurd and ridiculous privileges, whose burden in- 
creased daily, while their origin was growing more and 
more indistinct ; hence they were driven toward no- 
tions of natural equality. They beheld as many ir- 
regular and strange old institutions, all hopelessly 
jarring together and unsuited to the time, but cling- 
ing to life long after their virtue had departed ; and 
they naturally felt disgusted with all that was ancient 
and traditional, and — each taking his own reason for 
his guide — they sought to rebuild society on some 
wholly new plan.° 

These writers were naturally tempted to indulge un- 
reservedly in abstract and general theories of govern- 
ment. They had no practical acquaintance with the 
subject; their ardors were undamped by actual ex- 
perience ; they knew of no existing facts which stood 
in the way of desirable reforms ; they were ignorant 
of the dangers inseparable from the most necessary 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 173 

revolutions, and dreamed of none. There "being no 
approach toward political liberty, the business of gov- 
ernment was not only ill understood, it was not un- 
derstood at all. Having no share in it themselves, 
and seeing nothing that was done by those who had, 
these writers lacked the superficial education wliich 
the habit of political freedom imparts even to those 
who take no part in politics. They were hence bolder 
in their projects of innovation, fonder of theory and 
system, more prone to despise the teaching of antiqui- 
ty and to rely on individual reason than is usually the 
case with speculative writers on politics. 

Ignorance of the same kind insured their success 
among the masses. If the French people had still 
participated in the government by means of States- 
General, if they had still taken part in the administra- 
tion of the public business in Provincial Assemblies, it 
is certain that they would have received the lucubra- 
tions of these authors with more coolness ; their busi- 
ness habits would have set them on their guard against 
pure theory. 

Had they seen a possibility of changing the spirit 
without wholly destroying the form of their old insti- 
tutions, as the English did, they might have been reluc- 
tant to adventure upon absolute novelties ; but there 
was not a man whose fortune, or whose comfort, or 
whose person, or whose pride was not daily interfered 
with by some old law, or old institution, or old de- 
cayed authority, and each particular grievance seemed 
altogether incurable short of the total destruction of 
the constitution of the country. 

We had, however, saved one right from the general 



174 THE OLD REGIME 

wreck — that was the right of philosophizing freely on 
the origin of society, on the natural principles of gov- 
ernment, and the primitive rights of man. 

A rage for this political literature seized all who 
were inconvenienced by the legislation of the day, in- 
cluding many who were naturally but little prone to in- 
dulge in abstract speculations. Tax-payers, wronged 
by the unjust distribution of the taille, warmed over 
the principle of the natural equality of man. Farm- 
ers, whose harvests were spoiled by rabbits kept by 
their noble neighbors, rejoiced to hear that reason re- 
pudiated all privileges without exception. Popular 
passions thus disguised themselves in a philosophic 
garb ; political aspirations were forcibly driven into a 
literary channel, and men of letters, taking the direc- 
tion of public opinion, temporarily occupied the posi- 
tion which in free countries belongs to party leaders. 

Nor could their claim to that place be disputed. A 
vigorous aristocracy will not only conduct public busi- 
ness, but will make public opinion, and give the key- 
note to authors, and authority to principles ; but these 
prerogatives had passed away from the French nobility 
long before the eighteenth century; they had lost 
credit and power together. The place they had occu- 
pied in the public mind was vacant, and no one could 
gainsay the authors for seizing upon it. 

The aristocracy rather favored than impeded their 
usurpation. Forgetting that established theories, soon- 
er or later, inevitably become political passions, and 
find expression in acts, they made no objection to the 
discussion of doctrines that were wholly subversive of 
their private rights, and even of their existence. They 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 175 

considered them ingenious exercises for the mind, 
amused themselves by taking part in them, and peace- 
fully enjoyed their immunities and privileges, while 
they serenely discoursed on the absurdity of all exist- 
ing customs. 

Astonishment is expressed at the blindness with 
which the upper classes of the old regime helped to 
ruin themselves ; but where could they have learned 
better ? Ruling classes can no more acquire a knowl- 
edge of the dangers they have to avoid without free in- 
stitutions, than their inferiors can discern the rights 
they ought to preserve in the same circumstances. 
More than a century had elapsed since the last trace 
of public life had disappeared in France. During the 
interval, no noise or shock warned conservatives of the 
impending fall of the ancient edifice. Appearances re- 
maining unchanged, they suspected no internal revolu- 
tion. Their minds had stood still at the point where 
their ancestors had left off. The nobility were as jeal- 
ous of the royal prerogative in 1789 as they had been 
in the fifteenth century, as the reports of the States- 
General prove. On the other hand, on the very eve of 
his wreck in the democratic storm, the unhappy Louis 
XVI., as Burke very truly observes, could see no ri- 
val to the throne outside the ranks of the aristocracy ; 
he was as suspicious of the nobles as if he had been 
living in the time of the Fronde. He felt as certain 
as any of his ancestors that the middle and lower 
classes were the surest supports of the throne. 

But of all the strange phenomena of these times, the 
strangest to us, who have seen so many revolutions, is 
the absence of any thought of revolution from the mind 



176 THE OLD EEGIME 

of our ancestors. No such thing was discussed, be- 
cause no such thing had been conceived. In free com- 
munities, constant vibrations keep men's minds alive to 
the possibility of a general earthquake, and hold gov- 
ernments in check ; but in the old French society that 
was so soon to topple over, there was not the least 
symptom of unsteadiness. 

I have read attentively the cahiers of the Three Es- 
tates presented to the States-General in 1789; I say 
the Three Estates — nobility and clergy as well as Third 
Estate. I observe that here a law and there a custom 
is sought to be changed, and I note it. Pursuing the 
immense task to the end, and adding together all the 
separate demands, I discover with terror that nothing 
less is demanded than the simultaneous and systematic 
repeal of all the laws, and abolition of all the customs 
prevailing in the country ; and I perceive at once that 
one of the greatest revolutions the world ever saw is 
impending. Those who are to be its victims to-mor- 
row suspect nothing ; they delude themselves with the 
notion that this elaborate old society can be transform- 
ed without a shock, and with the help of reason alone. 
Unhappy creatures ! how had they forgotten the quaint 
old maxim of their fathers four hundred years ago, 
" He that is too desiring of liberty and franchess must 
needs fall into serfage." 

That the nobles and middle classes, shut out as they 
had been for so long from public life, should exhibit 
this singular inexperience, was not surprising ; but it 
was singular that the members of the government, min- 
isters, magistrates, and intendants, should be equally 
blind. Of these, many were able men at their trade ; 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 177 

they were thoronghly versed in the administrative sci- 
ence of the period ; but of the great science of govern- 
ment in the abstract, of the art of watching social move- 
ments and foreseeing their results, they were as igno- 
rant as the people themselves ; for this branch of the 
business of public men can only be taught by the prac- 
tical working of free institutions. 

This is finely illustrated in the memorial which Tur- 
got presented to the king in 1775, in which he advised 
the creation of a representative assembly. It was to be 
freely elected by the people, to meet for six weeks ev- 
ery year, but to exercise no effective authority. It 
might devote attention to administrative details, but 
without meddling with the government ; express opin- 
ions rather than wishes ; discuss laws without making 
them. "Such an assembly," said he, "would enlight- 
en the king without fettering him, and afford a safe 
outlet for public opinion. It would not be authorized 
to impede necessary measures of government, and could 
be easily restrained within these limits by his majesty 
in case it tried to overstep them." It would have been 
difficult to misapprehend more grossly the tendency of 
a measure or the spirit of the age. Toward the close 
of revolutions, it has certainly often happened that Tur- 
got's idea has been successfully realized, and the forms 
of liberty established without its substance. Augus- 
tus performed the experiment with success. When a 
nation has been wearied by long strife, it will submit 
to be duped for peace sake ; and in these cases history 
apprises us that it will suffice to collect from various 
parts of the country obscure dependents of government, 
and make them play the part of a political assembly 
H2 



178 THE OLD REGIME 

at a fixed rate of wages. This performance has been 
repeatedly witnessed. But at the outset of revolutions 
such enterprises have always failed, for they excite, 
without satisfying, men's minds. Every citizen of a 
free state is aware of this truth ; Turgot, with all his 
administrative science, knew nothing of it. 

Now when it is borne in mind that this French na- 
tion, which had so little experience of business, and so 
little to do with its own government, was, at the same 
time, the most literary of all the nations of the world, 
it may be easily understood how writers became a pow- 
er in the state, and ended by ruling it. 

In England, political writers and political actors 
were mixed, one set working to adapt newddeas to 
practice, the other circumscribing theory by existing 
facts ; whereas in France, the political world was di- 
vided into two separate provinces without intercourse 
with each other. One administered the government, 
the other enunciated the principles on which govern- 
ment ought to rest. The former adopted measures ac- 
cording to precedent and routine, the latter evolved 
general laws, without ever thinking how they could 
be applied. The one conducted business, the other 
directed minds. 

There were thus two social bodies : society proper, 
resting on a framework of tradition, confused and ir- 
regular in its organization, with a host of contradic- 
tory laws, well-defined distinctions of rank and sta- 
tion, and unequal rights ; and above this, an imagin- 
ary society, in which every thing was simple, harmo- 
nious, equitable, uniform, and reasonable. 

The minds of the people gradually withdrew from 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 179 

the former to take refiige in the latter. Men became 
indiiferent to the real by dint of dwelling on the ideal, 
and established a mental domicile in the imaginary- 
city which the authors had built. 

Our revolution has often been traced to American 
example. The American Eevolution, no doubt, exer- 
cised considerable influence over ours, but that influ- 
ence was less a consequence of the deeds done in 
America than an inference from the prevailing ideas 
in France. In other European countries the Ameri- 
can Eevolution was nothing more than a strange and 
new fact ; in France it seemed a striking confirmation 
of principles known before. It surprised them, it con- 
vinced us. The Americans seemed merely to have 
carried out what our writers had conceived ; they had 
realized what we were musing. It was as if Fenelon 
had been suddenly transported into the midst of the 
Sallentines. 

It was something entirely new for men of letters to 
direct the political education of a great nation : this, 
more perhaps than any thing else, contributed to form 
the peculiar character and results of our revolution. 

The people imbibed the temper and disposition of 
the authors with their principles. They were so long 
sole tutors of the nation, and their lessons were so 
wholly unchecked and untried by practical experience, 
that the whole nation acquired, by dint of reading 
them, their instincts, their mental complexion, their 
tastes, and even their natural defects. When the time 
for action came, men dealt with political questions on 
literary principles. 

The student of our revolution soon discovers that 



180 THE OLD REGIME 

it was led and managed by the same spirit which gave 
birth to so many abstract treatises on government. 
In both he finds the s^me love for general theories, 
sweeping legislative systems, and symmetrical laws ; 
the same confidence in theory ; the same desire for 
new and original institutions ; the same wish to re- 
construct the whole Constitution according to the rules 
of logic, and in conformity with a set plan, instead of 
attempting partial amendments. A terrible sight ! 
For what is a merit in an author is often a defect in 
a statesman, and characteristics which improve a book 
may be fatal to a revolution. 

The political style of the day was somewhat indebt- 
ed to the prevailing literature ; it bristled with vague 
expressions, abstract terms, ambitious words, and lit- 
erary phrases. The political passions of the day gave 
it currency among all classes, even the lowest. Long 
before the Eevolution, the edicts of Louis XYI. often 
spoke of natural laws and the rights of man. Peas- 
ants, in petitions, styled their neighbors " fellow-citi- 
zens ;" the intendant, "a respectable magistrate ;" the 
parish curate, the "minister of the altar;" and God, the 
" Supreme Being." They might have become sorry 
authors had they but known orthography. 

These peculiarities have taken such root in the 
French mind that they have been mistaken for its nat- 
ural characteristics, whereas they are, in fact, only the 
result of a strange system of education. I have heard 
it stated that the taste, or, rather, the rage we have 
shown during the last sixty years for general princi- 
ples, systems, and grand verbiage in political matters, 
proceeded from an idiosyncracy of our race — a pecul- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 181 

iarity of the Frencli mind ; as though a feature of this 
kind would be likely to remain hidden for ages, and 
only to see the light at the close of last century. 

It is singular that we should have retained the hab- 
its which literature created, though we have almost en- 
tirely lost our old love for letters. I was often sur- 
prised, during the course of my public life, to see men 
who hardly ever read the works of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, or, indeed, any others, and who despised literary 
men, exhibit a singular fidelity to leading defects to 
which the old literary spirit gave birth. 



182 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

HOW IKRELIGION BECAME A GENERAL RULING PASSION AMONG 
FRENCHMEN IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AND OP THE INFLU- 
ENCE IT EXERCISED OVER THE CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION. 

EVEE, since the great revolution of the sixteenth 
century, when the spirit of free inquiry was evoked 
to decide which of the various Christian traditions were 
true and which false, there had constantly appeared, 
from time to time, inquisitive or daring minds which 
disputed or denied them all. The train of thought 
which in the time of Luther had expelled from the 
Catholic fold several millions of Catholics drove a few 
Christians every year out of the pale of Christianity. 
Heresy had been followed by unbelief. 

It may be said generally that in the eighteenth cen- 
tury Christianity had lost a large portion of its power 
all over Europe ; but in most countries it had been re- 
luctantly abandoned rather than violently rejected. Ir- 
religion had spread among sovereigns and wits, but it 
had made no progress among the middle classes and 
the people ; it was a fashionable caprice, not a popular 
opinion. "A vulgar error prevails in Germany," says 
Mirabeau in 1787, "to the effect that the Prussian 
provinces are full of atheists. The truth is, that, if 
there are a few freethinkers here and there, the people 
are as religious as any nation in the world, and among 
them fanatics are quite common." He adds that it is 
a pity Frederick II. does not authorize the marriage of 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 183. 

Catholic priests, and allow married ecclesiastics to re- 
tain their rank and functions : " This measure, I ven- 
ture to say, would be worthy of so great a man." In 
France irreligion had become a passion, general, ar- 
dent, intolerant, oppressive ; but nowhere else. 

The scenes that took place in France were without 
precedent. Established religions had often been vio- 
lently attacked, but the fury which assailed them was 
always inspired by zeal for some new religion. Even 
the false and detestable religions of antiquity met with 
no violent or general opposition until Christianity arose 
to supplant them. Previous to that event they had 
died of old age, quietly, in the midst of doubt and in- 
difference. In France the Christian faith was furiously 
assailed, but no attempt was made to raise up another 
religion on its ruins. Ardent efforts were made to erad- 
icate from men's souls the faith that was in them, and 
leave them empty. A multitude of men engaged warm- 
ly in this ungrateful work. Absolute infidelity, than 
which nothing is more repugnant to man's natural in- 
stincts, or produces more discomfort of soul, appeared 
attractive to the masses. It had formerly given rise 
to a sickly languor : it now engendered fanaticism and 
propagandism. 

The accidental coincidence of several leading writ- 
ers, impressed with a sense of unbelief in Christianity, 
is not sufficient to account for this extraordinary event; 
for why should all these writers, without exception, 
turn their attention to this quarter in preference to 
others ? How did it happen that not one out of all 
of them took the opposite side ? Why was it that, 
unlike their predecessors, they found a ready ear and 



184 THE OLD REGIME 

a predisposition in their favor among the people ? 
The answers to these queries must be sought in pe- 
culiarities of time and place ; in the same direction, 
too, we must look for the secret of the success of 
these writers. Yoltaire's spirit had long existed in 
the world, but Yoltaire's reign never could have been 
realized except in France during the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 

Let us first acknowledge that the church in France 
was not more open to attack than elsewhere. Fewer 
vices and abuses had in fact crept into the French 
Church than were seen in many foreign churches ; the 
French clergy were more tolerant than their predeces- 
sors or their neighbors. The real causes of the phe- 
nomenon are to be found rather in the state of society 
than in that of the Church. 

In searching for them, we must carefully keep in 
view the proposition established in the last chapter, 
namely, that the opposition aroused by the faults of 
government, being excluded from the political world, 
took refuge in literature, whereby men of letters be- 
came the real chiefs of the party that was to over- 
throw all the social and political institutions of the 
country. 

That point established, the question presents itself 
in another form. It is not, What were the faults of 
the Church of that day as a religious institution ? but, 
Wherein was it an obstacle to the progress of the Eev- 
olution, and an inconvenience to the writers who were 
its chief leaders ? 

The fundamental principles of the Church were at 
war with those which they desired to see prevail in the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 185 

civil government of the country. The Church waa 
founded on traditions ; they professed the greatest con-. 
tempt for all institutions claiming respect in virtue of 
their antiquity. It recognized a higher authority than 
individual reason ; they allowed of no appeal from 
reason. It clung to the notion of a hierarchy ; they 
insisted on leveling all ranks. The two could never 
come to an understanding, unless both admitted that 
political and religious societies, being essentially dif- 
ferent, can not be governed by like principles; and 
as they were far from any admission of this kind, it 
seemed to the reformers absolutely necessary to de- 
stroy the religious institutions of the time in order to 
reach the civil institutions, which were constructed on 
their basis and model. 

The Church was, moreover, the first of aU political 
bodies, and the most odious, though not the most op- 
pressive. It had become a political body in defiance 
of its vocation and its nature ; it shielded vice in high 
places, while it censured it among the people ; it threw 
its sacred mantle over existing institutions, and seemed 
to demand for them the immortality it expected for it- 
self. Attacks upon such a body were sure of public 
sympathy. 

Besides these general reasons, the writers of the day 
had particular, and, so to speak, personal motives for 
directing their first attack against the Church. The 
clergy represented that portion of the government 
which was nearest and most diametrically opposed to 
them. Other authorities made themselves felt from 
time to time ; but the Church, specially intrusted with 
the superintendence of ideas and the censorship of let- 



186 THE OLD REGIME 

ters, was a daily thorn in their side. It opposed them 
when they stood forth on behalf of the general liberties 
of mankind, and consequently they were driven, in 
self-defense, to attack it as the outwork of the place 
they were assaulting. 

The Church, moreover, appeared the weakest and 
most defenseless of all the outworks which lay before 
them. Its power had declined as that of the sovereign 
had gained strength. Once his superior, then his 
equal, it was now merely his subordinate. The pair 
had exchanged gifts ; the Church had been glad to give 
its moral influence in return for the use of the phys- 
ical power of the sovereign. He enforced submission 
to the Church, it taught respect for the crown. It was 
a dangerous bargain, so near revolutionary,times, and 
sure to be disadvantageous to the power which relied 
on faith, not force. 

Though the kings still styled themselves eldest sons 
of the Church, they were not particularly dutiful. They 
took far better care of their own authority than of that 
of the Church. They did not allow it to be openly 
molested, but neither did they prevent insidious and 
covert attacks upon it. 

The species of constraint laid upon the enemies of 
the Church increased instead of diminishing their pow- 
er. Oppression sometimes checks intellectual move- 
ment, but as often it accelerates it ; it invariably hap- 
pens that such a censorship of the press as then exist- 
ed multiplies its power a hundred fold. 

Authors were persecuted sufficiently to warrant com- 
plaint, but not to justify terror. They labored under 
inconveniences, which goaded them on to the struggle 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 187 

without overwhelming them. Prosecutions against 
them were almost always noisy, slow, and fruitless; 
they were better calculated to encourage than to repress 
free speech. A thoroughly free press would have been 
safer for the Church. 

"You think our intolerance," Diderot wrote to Hume 
in 1768, "more favorable to intellectual progress than 
your unrestricted liberty : D'Holback, Helvetius, More- 
let, and Suard, are not of your opinion." The Scotch- 
man was, however, in the right ; he had the experience 
of a freeman. Diderot judged like a man of letters, 
Hume like a statesman. 

If I ask the first American I meet, either at home 
or abroad, whether he considers religion to be of service 
to law and social order, he will answer unhesitatingly 
that civilized society, especially if it be free, can not 
exist without religion. Respect for religion is in his 
eyes the best safeguard for political stability and pri- 
vate security. Those who know least about govern- 
ment know this much. There is no country in the 
world where the boldest political doctrines of the eight- 
eenth century philosophers have received so general a 
practical application as in America. But, notwithstand- 
ing the unlimited freedom of the press, their infidel doc- 
trines have never made any progress there. 

As much may be said of the English. Our irrelig- 
ious philosophy was preached to them before our phi- 
losophers were born ; it was -Bolingbroke who com- 
pleted Voltaire's education. Throughout the eighteenth 
century infidelity had famous champions in England. p 
Able writers, profound thinkers, embraced its cause. 
But they won no victories with it, because all who had 



188 THE OLD EEGIME 

any thing to lose "by revolutions hastened to the sup- 
port of the established faith. Even men who. mixed 
in French society, and did not reject the doctrines of 
our philosophers, considered them dangerous. Great 
political parties, such as exist in every free country, 
found it to be their interest to espouse the cause of the 
Church ; Bolingbroke was seen to join hands with the 
bishops. Animated by this example, and encouraged 
by a consciousness of support, the clergy fought with 
energy in their own defense. Notwithstanding the vice 
of its constitution, and the abuses of all sorts which 
teemed within its organization, the Church of England 
stood the shock unmoved ; writers and speakers sprang 
forth from its ranks, and defended Christianity with 
ardor. Infidel theories were discussed, refuted, and re- 
jected by society, without the least interference on the 
part of government. 

But why need we seek illustrations abroad ? Where 
is the Frenchman who would write such books as these 
of Diderot or Helvetius at the present day ? Who 
would read them ? I might almost say. Who knows 
their titles? We have had experience enough of pub- 
lic life, incomplete as it has been, during the last sixty 
years, to lose all taste for this dangerous style of liter- 
ature. See how each class in turn has learned, at the 
rough school of revolutions, the necessity of respecting 
religion. The old nobility were the most irreligious 
class of society before 1789, and the most pious after 
1793 ; the first attacked, they were the first to recov- 
er. When the middle classes were struck down in the 
midst of their victory, they in their turn drew toward 
religion. Eespect for religion gradually made its way 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 189 

into the "breast of every one who had any thing to lose 
by popular disorders, and infidelity disappeared or lay 
hidden in the general dread of revolution. 

Very different was the state of society toward the 
close of the old regime. Politicians were out of prac- 
tice, and were so ignorant of the part which religion 
plays in the government of empires, that infidelity 
found proselytes among those who were the most vi- 
tally interested in the maintenance of order and the 
subordination of the people. Nor yet proselytes alone, 
but propagandists, who made an idle pastime of dis- 
seminating impiety. 

The Church of France, which had up to that time 
been prolific in great orators, sank under the desertion 
of those whom a common interest should have rallied 
to its side, and made no sign. At one moment it seem- 
ed as though it would have compromised for the reten- 
tion of its wealth and rank by the sacrifice of its faith. 

The assailants of Christianity being as noisy as its 
adherents were mute, the latter began to fear that they 
were singular in their opinions, and, dreading singular- 
ity more than error, they joined the crowd without 
sharing its creed. Thus the whole nation was credited 
with the sentiments of a faction, and the new opinions 
seemed irresistible even to those whose conduct was 
the main secret of their imposing appearance. The 
phenomenon has been often witnessed since in France, 
in connection not only with religion, but with very dif- 
ferent matters. 

No doubt an extensive influence was exercised over 
our Eevolution by the general discredit into which re- 
ligious creeds had fallen at the close of the eighteenth 



190 THE OLD REGIME 

centurj. Its character was moulded, and a terrible 
aspect imparted to its physiognomy by this peculiar 
circumstance. 

I have endeavored to trace the effects produced by 
irreligion in France, and I am satisfied that it was by 
unsettling men's minds, rather than by degrading their 
hearts or corrupting their morals, that it led them into 
such strange excesses. 

When religion fled from men's souls, they were not 
left void and debilitated, as is usually the case ; its 
place was temporarily ^occupied by ideas and feelings 
which engrossed the mind and did not allow it to col- 
lapse. 

If the men of the Ke volution were more irreligious 
than we are, they were imbued with one adniirable 
faith which we lack : they believed in themselves. 
They had a robust faith in man's perfectibility and 
power ; they were eager for his glory, trustful in his 
virtue. They had a proud reliance in their own 
strength ; and though this often leads to errors, a peo- 
ple without it is not fit for freedom. They had no 
doubt but that they were appointed to transform socie- 
ty and regenerate the human race. These sentiments 
and passions had become a sort of new religion, which, 
like many religions which we have seen, stifled self- 
ishness, stimulated heroism and disinterestedness, and 
rendered men insensible to many petty considerations 
which have weight with us. 

I have studied history extensively, and I venture to 
affirm that I know of no other revolution at whose 
outset so many men were imbued with a patriotism 
as sincere, as disinterested, as truly great. The na- 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 191 

tion exhibited the characteristic fault, but likewise the 
characteristic virtue of youth, or, rather, the virtue 
which used to be characteristic of youth ; it was in- 
experienced, but it was generous. 

For all this, infidelity produced immense evil. 

Throughout most of the political revolutions that 
the world had experienced, the assailants of civil laws 
had respected religious creeds. In like manner, the 
leaders of religious revolutions had rarely undertaken 
to alter the form and character of civil institutions, 
and to abolish the whole framework of government. 
In the greatest social convulsions there had thus al- 
ways remained one solid spot. 

When the French Revolution overthrew civil and 
religious laws together, the human mind lost its bal- 
ance. Men knew not where to stop or what measure 
to observe. There arose a new order of revolutionists, 
whose boldness was madness, who shrank from no 
novelty, knew no scruples, listened to no argument or 
objection. And it must not be imagined that this new 
species of beings was the spontaneous and ephemeral 
offspring of circumstances, destined to perish when 
they passed away ; it has given birth to a race which 
has spread and propagated throughout the civilized 
world, preserving a uniform physiognomy, uniform pas- 
sions, a uniform character. We found it in existence 
at our birth ; it is still before us. 



192 THE OLD EEGIME 



CHAPTER XV. 

HOW THE FEENCH SOUGHT REFORMS BEFORE LIBERTIES. 

IT is noteworthy that of all the ideas and feelings 
which prepared the Eevolution, the idea of polit- 
ical liberty, properly so called, was the last to make 
its appearance, as the desire for it was the first to 
vanish. 

The old edifice of government had long been inse- 
cure; it shook, though no man struck it. Voltaire 
was hardly thinking of it. Three years' residence in 
England had enabled him to understand that country 
without falling in love with it. He was delighted with 
the skeptical philosophy that was freely taught among 
the English, but he was not struck with their political 
laws, which he rather criticised than praised. His let- 
ters on England, which are one of his master-pieces, 
hardly contain any allusion to Parliament : he envies 
the English their literary liberty, but cares little for 
their political liberty, as though the one could exist 
for any length of time without the other. 

About the middle of the century, a class of writers 
devoted their attention to administrative questions ; 
they had many points in common, and were hence dis- 
tinguished by the general name of economists or phys- 
iocrats. They are less conspicuous in history than 
the philosophers ; they exercised a less direct influ- 
ence in causing the Revolution, but still I think its 
true nature can best be studied in their writings. The 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 193 

philosophers confined themselves, for the most part, to 
abstract and general theories on the subject of govern- 
ment ; the economists dealt in theories, but also deign- 
ed to notice facts. The former furnished ideal, the lat- 
ter practical schemes of reform. They assailed alter- 
nately all the institutions which the Eevolution abol- 
ished ; not one of them found favor in their eyes. 
All those, on the other hand, which are credited espe- 
cially to the Eevolution, were announced beforehand 
and warmly lauded by them : it is not easy to men- 
tion one whose substantial features are not to be found 
in some of their writings. 

Their books, moreover, breathe that democratic and 
revolutionary spirit with which we are so familiar. 
They hate, not certain specific privileges, but all dis- 
tinctions of classes ; they would insist upon equality 
of rights in the midst of slavery. Obstacles they re- 
gard as only fit to be trampled on. They respect 
neither contracts nor private rights ; indeed, they hard- 
ly recognize individual rights at all in their absorbing 
devotion to the public good. Yet they were quiet, 
peaceable men, of respectable character, honest magis- 
trates, able administrators ; they were carried away 
by the peculiar spirit of their task. 

Their contempt for the past was unbounded. " The 
nation," said Letronne, " is governed on wrong princi- 
ples ; every thing seems to have been left to chance." 
Starting from this idea, they set to work to demand 
the demolition of every institution, however old and 
time-honored, which seemed to mar the symmetry of 
their plans. Forty years before the Constituent As- 
sembly divided France into departments, one of the 

I 



194 THE OLD EEGIME 

economists suggested the alteration of all existing ter- 
ritorial divisions and of the names of all the provinces. 

They conceived all the social and administrative re- 
forms effected by the devolution before the idea of 
free institutions had once flashed upon their mind. 
They were in favor of the removal of all restrictions 
upon the sale and conveyance of produce and merchan- 
dise. But of political liberty they took no thought ; 
and when it first occurred to them they rejected the 
idea. Most of them were strongly opposed to delib- 
erative assemblies, to local and subordinate authori- 
ties, and to the various checks which have been es- 
tablished from time to time in free countries to coun- 
terbalance the supreme government. "The system 
of counterpoises," said Quesnay, "is a fatal feature in 
governments." A friend of his was satisfied that 
" the system of counterpoises was the fruit of chimer- 
ical speculations." 

The only safeguard against despotism which they 
proposed was public education ; for, as Quesnay said, 
"Despotism is impossible in an enlightened nation." 
" Mankind," says one of his disciples, " have invented 
a host of fruitless contrivances to obviate the evils 
arising fi*om abuses of power by governments, but they 
have generally neglected the only one that could re- 
ally be of service, namely, a general permanent system 
of public education in the essence of justice and natu- 
ral order." Such was the literary nonsense they 
wanted to substitute in the place of political guaran- 
tees. 

Letronne bitterly deplores the government's neglect 
of the rural districts, and describes them as having no 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 195 

roads, no industry, no intellectual progress; but he 
never seems to have imagined that they would have 
been better regulated if their affairs had been intrusted 
to the people themselves. 

Even Turgot, with all his peculiar breadth of view 
and rare genius, was but little fonder than they of po- 
litical liberty. He had no taste for it till late in life, 
when public opinion pointed in that direction. Like the 
economists, he conceived that the best of all political 
guarantees was public education afforded by the state ; 
but he desired it to be conducted in a particular spirit, 
and according to a particular plan. His confidence in 
this intellectual course of medicine — or, as a contem- 
porary styled it, this " educational mechanism on fixed 
principles" — was unbounded. " I will venture to an- 
swer," said he to the king, in a memorial on the sub- 
ject, " that in ten years the nation will be so thorough- 
ly altered that you shall not recognize it ; and that, 
in point of enlightenment, morality, loyalty, and pa- 
triotism, it will surpass every other nation in the 
world. Children now ten years old will then be men, 
trained in ideas of love for their country, submissive 
to authority from conviction, not from fear, charitable 
to their fellow-countrymen, habituated to obey and to 
respect the voice of justice." 

It was so long since political liberty had flourished 
in France that its conditions and effects had been 
well-nigh forgotten. More than this, its shapeless rel- 
ics, and the institutions which seemed to have been 
framed to take its place, rather aroused prejudice 
against it. Most of the surviving state assemblies 
exhibited the spirit as well as the forms of the Middle 



196 THE OLD EEGIME 

Ages, and hindered instead of assisting social progress. 
The Parliaments, which were the only substitutes for 
political bodies, could not arrest the mischief done by- 
government, and often impeded it when it desired to 
do good. 

The economists did not think it possible to use 
these old institutions as instruments for the accom- 
plishment of the Revolution, nor did they approve 
the idea of intrusting the business to the nation as 
sovereign ; they doubted the feasibility of effecting so 
elaborate and intricate a reform by the aid of a popu- 
lar movement. Their designs, they thought, could be 
best and most easily accomplished by the crown it- 
self. 

The royal power had not taken its rise in the Mid- 
dle Ages, and bore no mediaeval stamp. They dis- 
covered in it good as well as bad points. It shared 
their proclivity for leveling all ranks, and making all 
laws uniform. It detested as heartily as they did the 
old institutions which had grown out of the feudal 
system, or which favored oligarchy. It was the best 
organized, the greatest and strongest government ma- 
chine in Europe. Its existence seemed to them a very 
fortunate accident ; they would have called it provi- 
dential had it been the fashion then as now to allude 
to Providence on all possible occasions. Letronne ob- 
serves that "France is much more happily situated 
than England ; for here reforms that will change the 
whole state of the country can be accomplished in a 
moment, whereas in England similar measures are al- 
ways exposed to be defeated by party strife." 

Their idea, then, was not to destroy, but to convert 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 197 

the absolute monarchy. ^* The state must govern ac- 
cording to the laws of natural order {regies de Vordre 
essentieiy says Mercier de la Riviere; " on these con- 
ditions it should be absolute." " Let the state," said 
another, "understand its duty thoroughly; this se- 
cured, it should be untrammeled." All of them, from 
Quesnay to Abbe Bodeau, were of the same mind. 

They were not satisfied with using the royal power 
to eiFect social reforms ; they partly borrowed from it 
the idea of the fature government they proposed to es-. 
tablish. The one was to be, in some measure, a copy 
of the other. 

The state, said the economists, must not only gov- 
ern, it must shape the nation. It must form the mind 
of citizens conformably to a preconceived model. It is 
its duty to fill their minds with such opinions and their 
hearts with such feelings as it may judge necessary. 
In fact, there are no limits either to its rights or its 
powers. It must transform as well as reform its sub- 
jects ; perhaps even create new subjects, if it thinks 
fit. "The state," says Bodeau, "moulds men into 
whatever shape it pleases." That sentence expresses 
the gist of the whole system. 

The immense social power conceived by the econo- 
mists differed from the power they had before them in 
point of origin and character as well as magnitude. It 
was not of divine origin ; it owed nothing to tradition ; 
it was impersonal: it was called the state, not the king; 
it was not the heirloom of a family, it was the collect- 
ive product and representative of the whole nation. In- 
dividual rights gave way to it as the sum of the rights 
of all. 



198 THE OLD REGIME 

They were quite familiar with the form of tyranny 
which we call democratic despotism, and which had not 
been conceived in the Middle Ages. No more social 
hierarchies, no distinctions of class or rank ; a people 
consisting of individuals entirely equal, and as nearly 
alike as possible ; this body acknowledged as the only 
legitimate sovereign, but carefully deprived of the means 
of directing or even superintending the government ; 
over it a single agent, commissioned to perform all 
acts without consulting his principals : to control him, 
a public sense of right and wrong, destitute of .organs 
for its expression ; to check him, revolutions, not laws ; 
the agent being de jure a subordinate agent, in fact a 
master : such was the plan. 

Finding nothing in their neighborhood conformable 
to this ideal of theirs, they went to the heart of Asia 
in search of a model. I do not exaggerate when I af- 
firm that every one of them wrote in some place or 
other an emphatic eulogium on China. One is sure 
to find at least that in their books ; and as China is 
very imperfectly known even in our day, their state- 
ments on its subject are generally pure nonsense. They 
wanted all the nations of the world to set up exact cop- 
ies of that barbarous and imbecile government, which 
a handful of Europeans master whenever they please. 
China was for them what England, and afterward Amer- 
ica, became for all Frenchmen. They were filled with 
emotion and delight at the contemplation of a govern- 
ment wielded by an absolute but unprejudiced sover- 
eign, who honored the useful arts by plowing once a 
year with his own hands ; of a nation whose only re- 
ligion was philosophy, whose only aristocracy were men 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 199 

of letters, whose public offices were awarded to the vic- 
tors at literary tournaments. 

It is generally believed that the destructive theories 
known by the name of socialism are of modern origin. 
This is an error. These theories are coeval with the 
earliest economists. While some of them wanted to 
use the absolute power they desired to establish to 
change the forms of society, others proposed to employ 
it in ruining its fundamental basis. 

Bead the Code de la Nature by Morelly ; you will 
find there, together with the economist doctrines re- 
garding the omnipotence and the boundless rights of 
the state, several of those political theories which have 
terrified France of late years, and whose origin we fan- 
cy we have seen — community of property, rights of 
labor, absolute equality, universal uniformity, mechan- 
ical regularity of individual movements, tyrannical reg- 
ulations on all subjects, and the total absorption of the 
individual in the body politic. 

"Nothing," says the first article of this code, "be- 
longs wholly to any one. Property is detestable, and 
any one who attempts to re-establish it shall be im- 
prisoned for life, as a dangerous madman and an ene- 
my of humanity." The second article declares that 
** every citizen shall be kept, and maintained, and sup- 
plied with work at the public expense. All produce 
shall be gathered into public garners, to be distributed 
to citizens for their subsistence. All cities shall be built 
on the same plan ; all private residences shall be alike. 
All children shall be taken from their families at five 
years of age, and educated together on a uniform plan." 
This book reads as if it had been written yesterday. 



200 THE OLD EEGIME 

It is a hundred years old; it appeared in 1755, simnl- 
taneously with the foundation of Quesnay's school. So 
true it is that centralization and socialism are natives 
of the same soil : one is the wild herb, the other the 
garden-plant. 

Of all the men of their age, the economists would 
seem the least out of place at the present day ; their 
passion for equality is so violent, their love of liberty 
so variable, that they wear a false air of contemporaries 
of our own. When I read the speeches and writings 
of the men who made the Revolution, I feel that I am 
in the company of strangers ; but when I glance at the 
writings of the economists, I begin to fancy that I have 
lived with them, and just heard them talk. 

About 1750 the nation at large cared no more for 
political liberty than the economists themselves ; when 
it fell into disuse, the taste for it, and even the idea of 
it, were soon lost. People sought reforms, not rights. 
Had the throne then been occupied by a monarch of 
the calibre and character of Frederick the Great, I have 
no doubt he would have accomplished many of the re- 
forms which were brought about by the Revolution ; 
and that not only without endangering his throne, but 
with a large gain of power. It is said that M. de Ma- 
chault, one of the ablest ministers of Louis XY., con- 
ceived this idea, and communicated it to his master; 
but such enterprises are not executed at second-hand ; 
a man capable of accomplishing them could not fail to 
conceive them himself. 

Twenty years changed the face of things. France 
had a glimpse of political liberty, and liked it. Many 
indications prove this. The provinces began to desire 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 201 

once more to administer their own government. Men's 
minds became imbued with the notion that the people 
at large were entitled to a share in their own govern- 
ment. Kecollections of the old States-General were 
revived. National history contained but this single 
item which the people loved to recall. The economists 
were carried away by the current, and compelled to 
clog their absolute scheme with some free institu- 
tions. 

When the Parliaments were destroyed in 1771, the 
public, which had suffered severely from their evils, 
was profoundly affected by their fall. It seemed as if 
the last barrier against the royal prerogative had been 
destroyed. 

^Yoltaire was indignant at the symptom. He wrote 
to his friends, " Nearly all the kingdom is in a state 
of effervescence and consternation ; the provinces fer- 
ment as violently as the capital. Yet the edict seems 
to me to be pregnant with useful reforms. To abolish 
all venal offices ; to establish courts that will adminis- 
ter justice gratuitously ; to prevent litigants from com- 
ing to Paris from all parts of the kingdom to ruin them-r 
selves ; to burden the crown with the expense of the 
seigniorial courts — are not these great services render- 
ed to the nation ? Have not these Parliaments been bar- 
barous and intolerant ? Eeally I admire the ' Welch- 
es' for taking the side of these insolent and indocile 
burghers. For my part, I think the king is right } if 
one must serve, I hold it better to serve a well-bred 
lion, who is naturally stronger than I am, than two 
hundred rats of my own breed." And he adds, by way 
of excuse, " Think how infinitely I ought to appreciate 

12 



202 THE OLD REGIME 

the kindness of the king in relieving seignioi'^^^of the 
cost of their courts." 

Yoltaire had been absent from Paris for many years, 
and fancied that the public mind was just as he had 
known it. This was not the case. The French were 
not satisfied now with desiring to see their affairs well 
managed ; they wanted to manage them themselves. 
It was already visible that the great revolution which 
was in preparation would be effected, not only with 
the consent of the people, but by their hands. 

I think that from this moment the radical revolu- 
tion, which was to ruin simultaneously the worst fea- 
tures of the old regime and its redeeming traits, be- 
came inevitable. A people so badly trained for action 
could not undertake reforms without destroying every 
thing. An absolute sovereign would have been a less 
dangerous reformer. And, for my part, when I remem- 
ber that this revolution, which destroyed so many in- 
stitutions, and ideas, and habits that were inimical to 
liberty, also destroyed others without which liberty can 
hardly exist, I am inclined to think that, had it been 
accomplished by a despot, it would have left us per- 
haps fitter to become a free nation than it did, though 
it was done in the name of and by the sovereign people. 

The preceding remarks must be carefully borne in 
mind by all who desire to understand the history of 
our Eevolution. 

At the time the French conceived a desire for po- 
litical liberty, they were imbued with a number of no- 
tions on the subject of government which were not 
only difficult to reconcile with liberty, but were almost 
hostile to it. 



K 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 203 



In their ideal society there was no aristocracy but 
that of public functionaries, no authority but the gov- 
ernment, sole and all-powerful, director of the state, 
tutor of individuals. They did not wish to depart 
from this system in the search for liberty ; they tried 
to conciliate the two. 

They attempted to combine an unlimited executive 
with a preponderating legislative body — a bureaucracy 
to administer, a democracy to govern. Collectively, 
the nation was sovereign — individually, citizens were 
confined in the closest dependence ; yet from the former 
were expected the virtues and the experience of a free 
people, from the latter the qualities of a submissive 
servant. 

It is to this desire of adjusting political liberty to 
institutions or ideas which are either foreign or hostile 
to it, but to which we were wedded by habit or at- 
tracted by taste, that we owe the many vain experi- 
ments of government that have been made during the 
last sixty years. Hence the fatal revolutions we have 
undergone. Hence it is that so many Frenchmen, 
worn out by fruitless efforts and sterile toil, have aban- 
doned their second object and fallen back on their first, 
declaring that there is, after aU, a certain pleasure in 
enjoying equality under a master. Hence we resem- 
ble the economists of 1750 more closely than our fa- 
thers of 1789. 

I have often asked myself what was the source of 
that passion for political liberty which has inspired the 
greatest deeds of which mankind can boast. In what 
feelings does it take root ? From whence does it de- 
rive nourishment ? 



204 THE OLD REGIME 

I see clearly enough that when a people is badly- 
governed it desires self-government ; but this kind of 
love for independence grows out of certain particular 
temporary mischiefs wrought by despotism, and is 
never durable ; it passes away with the accident which 
gave it birth. What seemed to be love for liberty 
turns out to be mere hatred of a despot. Nations born 
to freedom hate the intrinsic evil of dependence. 

Nor do I believe that a true love for liberty can 
ever be inspired by the sight of the- material advan- 
tages it procures, for they are not always clearly vis- 
ible. It is very true that, in the long run, liberty al- 
ways yields to those who know how to preserve it 
comfort, independence, and often wealth; but there 
are times when it disturbs these blessings for a while, 
and there are times when their immediate enjoyment 
can only be secured by a despotism. Those who only 
value liberty for their sake have never preserved it 
long. 

It is the intrinsic attractions of freedom, its own 
peculiar charm — quite independently of its incidental 
benefits — which have seized so strong a hold on the 
great champions of liberty throughout history; they 
loved it because they loved the pleasure of being able 
to speak, to act, to breathe' unrestrained, under the sole 
government of God and the laws. He who seeks free- 
dom for any thing but freedom's self is made to be a 
slave. 

Some nations pursue liberty obstinately through all 
kinds of dangers and sufferings, not for its material 
benefits ; they deem it so precious and essential a 
boon that nothing could console them for i'ts loss, 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 205 

while its enjoyment would compensate them for all 
possible afflictions. Others, on the contrary, grow 
tired of it in the midst of prosperity ; they allow it to 
be torn from them without resistance rather than com- 
promise the comfort it has bestowed on them by mak- 
ing an effort. What do they need in order to remain 
free ? A taste for freedom. Do not ask me to analyze 
that sublime taste ; it can only be felt. It has a place 
in every great heart which God has prepared to re- 
ceive it : it fills and inflames it. To try to explain it 
to those inferior minds who have never felt it is to 
waste time. 



206 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTER XYI. 

THAT THE KEIGN OF LOIJIS XVI. WAS THE MOST PROSPEROUS ERA 
OF THE OLD MONARCHY, AND HOW THAT PROSPERITY REALLY 
HASTENED THE REVOLUTION. 

IT can not be questioned "but the exhaustion of 
France under Louis XIV. commenced long be- 
fore the reverses of that monarch. Symptoms of v/eak- 
ness may be detected in the most glorious years of 
his reign. France was ruined before she had ceased 
to conquer. Who has not read the terrible essay on 
Statistics of Administration which Vauban has left 
us ? In memorials addressed to the Duke of Bur- 
gundy at the close of the seventeenth century, before 
the outbreak of the disastrous war of Succession, all 
the intendants allude to the growing decay of the na- 
tion, and do not speak as though it were of recent 
origin. One observes that population has greatly 
fallen off within his province of late years ; another 
says that such a town, formerly rich and flourishing, 
now affords no demand for labor. One reports that 
there used to be manufactures in the province, but 
they have been abandoned ; another, that the soil was 
more productive, and agriculture more flourishing twen- 
ty years ago than it is now. An intendant of Orleans 
was positive that population and production had fallen 
off twenty per cent, within thirty years. Partisans of 
despotism and warlike sovereigns should be recom- 
mended to read these documents. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 207 

As these evils grew out of the faults of the Consti- 
tution, neither the death of Louis XIV. nor even the 
advent of peace restored public prosperity. Writers 
on government and social economy, in the first half of 
the eighteenth century, invariably held to the opinion 
that the provinces were not recovering — that their de- 
cline was steadily progressive. They asserted that 
Paris alone was increasing in size and wealth. In- 
tendants, ministers, men of business, agreed with men 
of letters on this point. 

I confess that, for my part, I disbelieve this steady 
decline of France during the first half of the eighteenth 
century ; but the universality of the belief in it, even 
among those who were best fitted to judge, shows that 
no sensible progress was being made. All the public 
documents of the time which I have seen, in fact, in- 
dicate a sort of social lethargy. The government re- 
volved in the old routine ckcle, creating nothing new ; 
cities made hardly any effort to render the condition 
of their inhabitants more comfortable and more whole- 
some ; no private enterprise of any magnitude was un- 
dertaken. 

i About thirty or forty years before the Eevolution 
broke out/ the scene changed. (Every portion of the 
social body seemed to quiver with internal motion.) 
The phenomenon was unprecedented, and casual ob- 
servers did not notice it; but it gradually became 
more characteristic and more distinct. Year after year 
it became more general and more violent, till the whole 
nation was aroused. Beware of supposing that its 
old life is going to be restored ! 'Tis the awakening of 
a new spirit, which gives life only in order to destroy. 



208 THE OLD REGIME 

(Every one is dissatisfied with his condition, and 
seeks to change it. Reform is the cry on every side. 
But it is sought impatiently and angrily ; men curse 
the past, and dream of a state of things opposite in ev- 
ery particular to that which they see before them. The 
spirit soon penetrates the government itself; trans- 
forms it inwardly without changing its outward form ; 
leaves the laws as they were, but alters their adminis- 
tration.) 

I have said elsewhere that the comptroller-general 
and the intendants of 1740 were very different person- 
ages from the comptroller-general and the intendants 
of 1780. This is shown in detail in the official cor- 
respondence of the time. At both periods intendants 
were invested with the same authority, employed the 
same agents, used the same arbitrary means ; but their 
objects were different. In 1740 intendants were en- 
grossed with the business of keeping their province in 
order, levying militia, and collecting the taille; in 1780 
their heads were full of schemes for enriching the pub- 
lic. Eoads, canals, manufactures, commerce, and agri- 
culture above all, absorbed their attention. Sully was 
then the fashionable model of an administrator. 

It was at this period that the agricultural societies 
I have mentioned began to be established ; that fairs 
began to be common, and prizes to be distributed. I 
have seen circulars from the comptroller-general which 
read more like agricultural treatises than public state 
papers. 

/' The change that had come over the spirit of the gov- 
erning class was best seen in the collection of the tax- 
es. Though the laws were as unequal, as arbitrary. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 209 

as liarsli as ever, their faults were materially alleviated 
in practice. ' 

M. Mollien, in his Memoirs, observes that, when he 
" began to study the fiscal laws, he was terrified by 
what he discovered : exceptional courts allowed to sen- 
tence men to fine, imprisonment, corporal punishment 
for mere omissions ; tax-farmers exercising plenary au- 
thority over persons and property on the sole respon- 
sibility of their own oath, &c. Fortunately, he did not 
confine his studies to the letter of the law, and he soon 
discovered that there was as much difierence between 
the text of the law and its application, as there was 
between the style of living of the old and modern 
school of financiers. The courts were always inclined 
to extenuate offenses and mitigate penalties." 

The Provincial Assembly of Lower Normandy said, 
in like manner, in 1787, "The tax levy may lead to 
abuses and vexations innumerable ; we are, however, 
bound to admit that in practice the law has been car- 
ried out with moderation and discretion of late years." 

Official documents abundantly justify this assertion. 
They prove conclusively that life and liberty were re- 
spected ; they indicate, moreover, a general concern for 
the ills of the poor : a new sentiment. The state rare- 
ly employed violence with the poor, but often remit- 
ted their taxes or granted them alms. The king sub- 
scribed to all the country work-houses or poor-houses, 
and occasionally founded new ones. I find that more 
than 80,000 livres were distributed by the state in 
charity, in Haute-Guienne alone, in the year 1779; 
40,000 in Touraine in 1784 ; 48,000 in Normandy in 
1787. Louis XVI. would not always leave this branch 



210 THE OLD REaiME 

of public "business to his ministers ; lie often took 
charge of it himself. When a decree was drawn to 
fix the indemnity due to the peasantry for the damage 
done to their fields by the royal game in the neighbor- 
hood of the captainries, the king drafted the preamble 
himself, and indicated the method which the peasants 
were to pursue in order to obtain speedy justice. Tur- 
got describes this good and unfortunate sovereign bring- 
ing him the draft in his own handwriting, and saying, 
"You perceive that I work, too, on my side." If the 
old regime were described as it really was during the 
last years of its existence, the portrait would be flat- 
tering and very unfaithful. 

( Simultaneously with these changes in the mind of 
governed and governors, public prosperity began to de- 
velop with unexampled strides. This is shown by 
all sorts of evidence. Population increased rapidly ; 
wealth more rapidly still. The American war did not 
check the movement : it completed the embarrassment 
of the state, but did not impede private enterprise ; in- 
dividuals grew more industrious, more inventive, rich- 
er than ever.) 

An official of the time states that in 1774 "indus- 
trial progress had been so rapid that the amount of 
taxable articles had largely increased." On compar- 
ing the various contracts made between the state and 
the companies to which the taxes were farmed out, at 
different periods during the reign of Louis XYI., one 
perceives that the yield was increasing with astonishing 
rapidity. The lease of 1786 yielded fourteen millions 
more than that of 1780. Necker, in his report of 

1781, estimated that " the produce of taxes on articles 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 211 

of consumption increased at the rate of two millions 
a year." 

C Arthur Young states that in 1788 the commerce of 
Bordeaux was greater than that of Liverpool, and adds 
that " of late years maritime trade has made more 
progress in France than in England ; the whole trade 
of France has doubled in the last twenty years.") 

Due allowance made for the difference of the times, 
it may be asserted that at no period since the Rev- 
olution has public prosperity made such progress as 
it did during the twenty years prior to the Revolu- 
tion. i In this respect, the thirty-seven years of con- 
stitutional monarchy, which were periods of peace and 
rapid progress for us, can alone compare with the reign 
of Louis XVI. 

Considering the vices of the government and the 
burdens which weighed upon industry, the spectacle 
of this great and increasing prosperity is astonishing ; 
so astonishing, indeed, that some political writers, find- 
ing themselves incapable of explaining the fact, have 
denied it altogether, on the same principle that Mo- 
liere's doctor refused to believe that a patient could 
be cured contrary to rule. How was it possible that 
France could prosper and grow rich with unequal tax- 
es, diversified customs, town dues, feudal rights, trade 
guilds, venal offices, etc. ? For all these, France did 
begin to grow rich and develop its resources on all 
sides ; and for the simple reason that, independently 
of these misshapen and inharmonious machines, which 
seemed better calculated to retard than to accelerate so- 
cial progress, society was held together and driven to- 
ward public prosperity by two very simple but very 



212 THE OLD EEaiME 

powerful agents : the one a government, strong with- 
out being despotic, which maintained order every 
where ; the other a nation whose upper classes were 
the most enlightened and the freest people on the Con- 
tinent, and in which individuals were at liberty to make 
money if they could, and to keep it when made. 

{ Though the king used the language of a master, he 
was, in reality, the slave of public opinion. From pub- 
lic opinion he derived all his inspirations ; he consult- 
ed it, feared it, flattered it. Absolute in theory, he 
was limited in practice. As early as 1784, Necker 
said in a public document, " Foreigners rarely realize 
the authority wielded by public opinion in France ; 
they can not readily understand the nature of that in- 
visible power which rules even over the royal palace. 
It does so, however." He mentions the fact as a mat- 
ter beyond dispute. ) 

It is a superficial error to ascribe the greatness and 
power of a nation to the mechanism of its legislation ; 
for in this matter the product is due less to the per- 
fection of the instrument than to the strength of the 
power used. Look at England ; how much more com- 
plicated, and varied, and irregular do her laws seem 
than ours 1^ Yet where is the European nation whose 
public credit stands higher, or in which private prop- 
erty is more extensive, more varied, and safer, or so- 
ciety sounder or more opulent 1"^ The fact does not 
spring from the excellence of this or that law, but from 
the spirit which pervades the whole body of English 
legislation. The imperfection of special organs is im- 
material, the vital spirit is so strong. 

( Measurably with the increase of prosperity in 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 213 

France, men's minds grow more restless and uneasy ; 
public discontent is imbittered ; the hatred of the old 
institutions increases. The nation visibly tends to- 
ward revolution, j 

•^More than this, those districts where progress makes 
the greatest strides are precisely those which are to be 
the chief theatre of the Revolution. The extant ar- 
chives of the old district of He de France prove that 
the old regime was soonest and most thoroughly re- 
formed in the neighborhood of Paris. In no other 
pays d' election were the liberty and property of the 
peasant so well secured. Corvees had disappeared 
long before 1789. The taille was more moderate, more 
regular, more evenly distributed there than in any 
other part of France.. A perusal of the law which re- 
formed it in 1772 is absolutely essential to those who 
would understand how powerful an intendant could 
be, whether for good or for evil. In this law the tax 
appears in a new light. Government commissioners 
visit each parish once a year and convene the whole 
community ; the relative value of estates is settled 
publicly ; the means of each citizen ascertained by 
fair discussion ; the taille is distributed with the con- 
currence of all who are to pay it. The arbitrary pow- 
er of the syndic, the old useless recourse to violence, 
are done away with. The taille retains its inherent 
vices, no doubt, under the best system of collection ; 
it is levied on one class of taxables only, and weighs 
upon their industry as well as upon their property, 
but in all other respects it is a very different affair 
from the tax of the same name in the neighboring dis- 
tricts. ^ 



214 THE OLD EEGIME 

On the other hand, the old regime was nowhere in 
so high a state of preservation as on the borders of the 
Loire, especially near its mouth, in the swamps of 
Poitou and the moors of Brittany. That is the very 
place where the civil war broke out, and the Bevolu- 
tion was resisted with most obstinacy and violence. 
So that it would appear that the French found their 
condition the more insupportable in proportion to its 
improvement. 

One is surprised at such an anomaly, but similar 
phenomena abound in history. 

Revolutions are not always brought about by a 
gradual decline from bad to worse. JSTations that have 
endured patiently and almost unconsciously the most 
overwhelming oppression, often burst into rebellion 
against the yoke the moment it begins to grow lighter. 
The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is al- 
most always an improvement on its immediate pred- 
ecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical 
moment for bad governments is the one which wit- 
nesses their first steps toward reform. A sovereign 
who seeks to relieve his subjects after a long period of 
oppression is lost, unless he be a man of great genius. 
Evils which are patiently endured when they seem inev- 
itable, become intolerable when once the idea of escape 
from them is suggested. The very redress of griev- 
ances throws new light on those which are left un- 
touched, and adds fresh poignancy to their smart : if 
the pain be less, the patient's sensibility is greater.* 
Never had the feudal system seemed so hateful to the 
French as at the moment of its proximate destruction. 
The arbitrary measures of Louis XVI. — insignificant 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 215 

as they were — seemed harder to bear than all the des- 
potism of Louis XIV. The short imprisonment of 
Beaumarchais aroused more emotion in Paris than the 
Dragonnades. 

No one in 1780 had any idea that France was on 
the decline ; on the contrary, there seemed to be no 
bounds to its progress. It was then that the theory 
of the continual and indefinite perfectibility of man- 
took its rise. Twenty years before, nothing was 
hoped from the future; in 1780 nothing was feared. 
Imagination anticipated a coming era of unheard-of 
felicity, diverted attention from present blessings, and 
concentrated it upon novelties. 

(Besides these general reasons for the phenomenon, 
there were others of a particular nature and equally po- 
tent. Though the administration of the finances had 
been improved with the other departments, it was stiU 
marked by the faults which are inseparable from abso- 
lute governments. It was secret and irresponsible, 
and hence many of the mischievous practices of Louis 
XIV. and XV. were still in use. The very efforts 
which the government made to develop public pros- 
perity, the assistance it occasionally lavished upon the 
needy, the public works it undertook, increased its ex- 
penses without proportionally increasing its revenue ; 
hence the king's embarrassments were even greater 
than those of his predecessors. Like them, he often 
made his creditors sufier ; like them, he borrowed on 
all sides privately, and without calling for tenders. 
His creditors were never sure of their interest; in- 
deed, their only guarantee for their capital was the 
personal faith of the sovereign^ 



216 THE OLD REGIME 

^ An observer who is reliable, for he was an eye-wit- 
ness, and better placed for observation than most peo- 
ple, says on this subject, "The French ran great risks 
in dealing with their own government. ^ If they in- 
vested money in its securities, t'hey were never sure of- 
the time when the interest would be paid. If they 
built ships, mended roads, clothed soldiers for the gov- 
ernment, they had no security for repayment of their 
advances, no certainty when the debt would be consid- 
ered due; in fact, they were forced to calculate the 
chances of losing on a contract with ministers just as 
they would do on a bottomry bond." He adds, very 
sensibly, " At this time, especially when the develop- 
ment of industry created an unusual thirst for the ac- 
quisition of property, and a new liking for ease and 
comfort, those who had lent money to the state felt 
more keenly than they would have done at another 
time the bad faith of the creditor who, of all others, 
ought to have been the last to forget the sanctity of a 
contract." 

The abuses with which the French government was 
charged were not new, but the light in which they were 
viewed was. More crying faults had existed in the 
financial department at an earlier period, but since then 
changes had taken place, both in government and in 
society, which made them more keenly felt than before. 

Within the last twenty years the government had 
acquired an unwonted activity, and had taken part in 
all kinds of new enterprises. It had thus become the 
largest consumer of industrial products, and the great- 
est contractor in the kingdom. A prodigious increase 
had taken place in the number of those who had mon- 
ey relations with it, who were interested in its loans. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 217 

speculated in its bargains, or were its salaried servants. 
At no former period were private fortunes so deeply 
involved with the state finances. Bad financial man- 
agement had formerly been a public evil, now it be- 
came disastrous to a thousand private families. In 
1789 the state owed nearly 600 millions to creditors 
who were themselves in debt, and whose grievances 
were aggravated by the personal injury inflicted on 
them by the remissness of the state. And be it re- 
marked that the irritation of this class of malcontents 
increased in proportion to their number ; for a specu- 
lative mania, a thirst for riches, a taste for comfort 
spreading as business became extended, troubles of this 
kind appeared intolerable to those who, thirty years 
before, might have borne them without complaint. 

Hence it happened that capitalists, merchants, man- 
ufacturers, and other business men or financiers — who 
are usually the most conservative class of the com- 
munity, and the stanchest supporters of government, 
and who will submit patiently to laws which they de- 
spise or detest — were now more impatient and more 
resolutely bent on reform than any other section of the 
people. They were especially determined on a revolu- 
tion in the financial department, never dreaming that a 
radical change in that branch of the government must 
involve the ruin of the whole. 

How could a catastrophe have been avoided ? On 
one side, a nation in which the desire for wealth in- 
creased daily ; on the other, a government unceasingly 
engaged in exciting and disturbing men's minds, now 
inflaming their avarice, now driving them to despair — 
rushing to its ruin by both roads. 

K 



218 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTER XVIL 

HOW ATTEMPTS TO RELIEVE THE PEOPLE PROVOKED REBELLION. 

AS the people had not appeared for a single instant 
on the public stage for a hundred and forty years, 
the possibility of their ever appearing there was forgot- 
ten, and their insensibility was regarded as a proof of 
deafness. Hence, when some interest began to be tak- 
en in their lot, they were discussed publicly as though 
they had not been present. It appeared as though it 
was supposed that the discussion would only be heard 
by the upper classes, and that the only danger was lest 
these might not be made to understand the case. 

The very classes which had most to fear from pop- 
ular fury declaimed loudly and publicly against the 
cruel injustice which the people had so long suffered. 
They took pleasure in pointing out to each other the 
monstrous vices of the institutions which weighed upon 
the people. They employed rhetoric to paint their 
sufferings and the inadequate rewards for their labor. 
Thus, in their endeavor to relieve the lower classes, 
they roused them to fury. I am not speaking of writ- 
ers — I allude to the government, to its chief agents, 
themselves members of the privileged classes. 

When the king endeavored to abolish corvees thir- 
teen years before the Kevolution, he stated in the pre- 
amble of the ordinance, "With the exception of a few 
provinces {pays d'etats), nearly all the roads of the 
kingdom have been made gratuitously by the poorest 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 219 

portion of our subjects. The whole burden has fallen 
upon those who have no property but their labor, and 
whose interest in the roads is very slender; the land- 
owners, who are really interested in the matter — for 
their property increases in value in proportion to the 
improvement in the roads — are privileged exempts. 
By compelling the poor to keep the roads in repair, to 
give their time and their labor for nothing, we have 
deprived them of their only safeguard against poverty 
and hunger, in order to make them toil for the benefit 
of the rich." 

When an effort was made, at the same time, to re- 
move the restraints which the system of industrial cor- 
porations imposed on workmen, it was proclaimed in 
the king's name "that the right to labor is the most 
sacred of all properties ; that any law which infringes 
that right is essentially null and void, as being incon- 
sistent with natural right ; that the existing corpora- 
tions are, moreover, abnormal and tyrannical institu- 
tions, the product of selfishness, cupidity, and vio- 
lence." Such expressions were perilous indeed; but 
it was more dangerous still to utter them in vain. A 
few months later, corporations and corvees were re-es- 
tablished. 

It was Turgot, it is said, who put these words in 
the king's mouth. Most of his successors followed 
the example. When the king announced, in 1780, 
that from that time forth the augmentations of the 
taille would be made public by registry, he took pains 
to add as a commentary, " The persons liable to pay 
the taille have been not only tormented by the vexa- 
tious manner in which it is collected, but have^ been 



220 THE OLD KEGIME 

exposed besides to unexpected augmentations in the 
amount levied, and that to such an extent that the 
taxes paid Tby the poorest portion of our subjects have 
increased much more rapidly than those levied on the 
richer classes." Again, when the king, not daring to 
equalize all the taxes, endeavored to establish the 
principle of equality in the collection of those which 
were already paid by all classes in common, he said, 
" His majesty hopes that the rich will not complain of 
being placed on the same level as the poor in the per- 

\ formance of a duty which they ought long ago to have 

\ shared more equally." 
X In times of scarcity, especially, greater efforts seem 
to have been made to inflame the passions of the peo- 
ple than to supply their necessities. An intendant, 
desirous of stimulating the charity of the rich, would 
speak of " the injustice and the harshness of those 
landowners who owe all they have to the labor of the 
poor, and who leave the unfortunate laborers, broken 
down in their service, to perish of hunger." On a 
similar occasion, the king declared that it was "his 
majesty's intention to protect the poor against schemes 
' which compelled them to work for the rich at a rate 
of wages fixed by the latter, and thus exposed them 
to lack the very necessaries of life. The king will not 
permit one portion of mankind to be surrendered to 
the cupidity of another." 

To the close of the monarchical era, the struggle 
between the various administrative branches of gov- 
ernment gave rise to all sorts of manifestations of this 
kind ; each disputant accused his rival of being the 
cause of the people's misery. Tliis is seen distinctly 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 221 

in the quarrel whicli took place between the king and 
the Parliament of Toulouse on the subject of the move- 
ment of breadstuffs. The Parliament declared that 
" the false policy of the government endangered the 
subsistence of the poor ;" and the king replied that it 
was " the ambition of the Parliament and the greed 
of the rich which caused the public distress." Thus 
on both sides efforts were made to convince the peo- 
ple that their sufferings were the work of their supe- 
riors. 

These matters were not stated in private letters; 
they are to be found in pubKc documents, which the 
government and the Parliament took care to print by 
thousands. In the course of his explanations, the king 
told some harsh truths both of his predecessors and 
of himself. " The state treasury," said he once, " has 
been embarrassed by the profusion of several reigns. 
Several of our inalienable domains have been sold far 
below their value." "Industrial corporations," he is 
made to say on another occasion, with more truth than 
.prudence, " are the especial product of the fiscal greed 
of kings." Farther on he says, " If money has often 
been thrown away in useless expenses, and the taille 
has increased beyond measure, the fact must be charged 
upon the administrators of the finances, who, finding 
an increase of the taille the easiest, because the most 
secret method of meeting their difficulties, have had 
recourse to that plan, though almost any other would 
have been less burdensome to our subjects."" 

All this was addressed to the educated classes, in 
order to prove the merit of measures which certain 
private interests opposed. As for the people, it was 



222 THE OLD REGIME 

taken for granted that they heard all, but understood 
nothing. 

It must be admitted that the very benevolence which 
prompted the relief of these poor people concealed a 
large share of contempt for them. One is reminded 
of Madame de Duchatelet, who, according to Voltaire's 
secretary, had no objection to undress before her serv- 
ants, as she was not convinced that valets were men. 

Nor was the dangerous language quoted above con- 
fined to Louis XVI. or his ministers. The very priv- 
ileged classes who were the most immediate objects of 
popular hatred never spoke otherwise. It must be 
acknowledged that the upper classes in France con- 
cerned themselves about the condition of the poor long 
before they learned to fear them : their interest in pop- 
ular sufferings was prior to the first suspicion that 
those sufferings might eventuate in their ruin. This 
is especially visible in the ten years which preceded 
1789. The peasantry were the theme of constant con- 
versations, of abiding sympathy. Remedies for their 
evils were suggested incessantly. Light was thrown 
on their chief grievances, and the fiscal laws which 
pressed heavily on them were loudly censured. But 
their new friends were as thoughtless in their sympa- 
thy as they had formerly been in their insensibility. 

Read the reports of the Provincial Assemblies which 
were convened in some parts of France in 1779, and, 
at a later period, throughout the kingdom ; study the 
public documents which they have left us, and you 
will be touched with the humanity and amazed at the 
singular imprudence of their language. 

The Provincial Assembly of Normandy declared, in 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 223 

1787, that " the money appropriated Tby the king to 
the roads has often been so used as to be convenient 
to the rich, but useless to the poor. It has often been 
employed to render the approach to a chateau more 
agreeable, while the entry of a bourg or village has 
been neglected." At the same assembly, the two or- 
ders of the nobility and the clergy, after having de- 
scribed the vices of the system of corvees^ offered spon- 
taneously to devote 50,000 livres to the improvement 
of the roads, " so that," as they say, " the internal 
communications of the province may be made practi- 
cable without costing the people any thing." It would 
have been less onerous to the privileged classes to have 
substituted a general tax for the corvees, and to have 
paid their share ; but even in abandoning the benefit 
of unequal taxation, they liked to preserve the name 
of being exempt. They sacrificed the useful portion 
of their rights, but they preserved what was odious. 

Other assemblies, wholly composed of persons who 
were, and intended to remain, exempt from the taille, 
painted, in equally sombre colors, the evils which that 
tax inflicted on the poor. They drew a frightful sketch 
of its abuses, and scattered copies broadcast. And, 
singular to state, with these striking marks of interest 
in the people's welfare, they intermingled, from time 
to time, public expressions of contempt. The people 
had inspired sympathy without ceasing to inspire dis- 
dain. 

The Provincial Assembly of Upper Guienne, plead- 
ing with warmth the cause of the peasantry, alluded 
to them as " ignorant and gross beings, turbulent 
spirits, and rude and indocile characters,'''' Turgot, 



224 THE OLD REGIME 

who did so much for the people, used language very 
similar."^ 

Expressions as harsh were commonly u^ed in docu- 
ments destined to a wide publicity, and intended to be 
seen by the peasantry. It was as if the writers had 
been living in one of those European countries like 
Gallicia, where the upper classes speak a different 
tongue from the lower, and can not be understood by 
them. Feudal lawyers of the eighteenth century, who 
often evince an unusual spirit of justice, moderation, 
and tenderness for copyholders and other feudal debt- 
ors, still occasionally speak of low ^peasants. These 
insults appear to have been technical {de style), as the 
notaries say. 

Toward 1789, the sympathy for the people grew 
warmer and more imprudent. I have had in my hands 
circulars, addressed by several Provincial Assemblies, 
in the early part of 1788, to the people of several par- 
ishes, inquiring for the details of their grievances. One 
of these was signed by an ahbe, a nobleman of high de- 
gree, three men of rank, and a burgher, all members 
of the assembly and acting in its name. This com- 
mission directed the syndic of each parish to convene 
the peasantry, and inquire of them what complaints 
they had to make of the manner in which the taxes 
were levied upon them. "We are aware," it said, 
" that most of the taxes, and especially the gavel and 
the taille, are disastrous in their effects upon farmers ; 
but we desire to ascertain the particulars of each abuse." 
Nor does the curiosity of the Assembly rest there. 
They want to know the number of persons who are 
exempt from taxation in the parish ; whether they are 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 225 

noblemen, ecclesiastics, or commoners ; wliat is the na- 
ture of their privileges ; what is the value of their prop- 
erty ; whether they reside on their estates ; whether 
the parish contains much Church property, or, as the 
phrase then was, much land in mortmain, not mer- 
chantable ; and what its value may be. Even these 
inquiries fall short of their requirements. They desire 
to know what sum of money would represent the share 
which each privileged person would have to bear in 
taxes, taille and its accessories, capitation-tax, corvees^ 
if taxation weighed equally on all. 

This was simply inflaming the passions of each in- 
dividual by the recital of his wrongs, pointing out 
their authors to him, encouraging him by indicating 
the smallness of their number, stealing into his inmost 
heart to light up his cupidity, his envy, his hatred. 
It seemed as though the Jacquerie, the Maillotins, the 
Sixteen, had been wholly forgotten ; and as if no one 
knew that the French, who are naturally the gentlest 
and even the kindest people in the world so long as 
they are in repose, become the most barbarous race 
alive when violent passions pervert their natural dis- 
position, 

I have, unhappily, been unable to procure all the an- 
swers which the peasants made to these murderous in- 
quiries, but I have found a few of them, and they suf- 
fice to indicate the spirit of the whole. 

They give with care the name of every privileged 
person, whether belonging to the nobility or the mid- 
dle classes. Occasionally they describe, and invaria- 
bly criticise his mode of life. They enter into curious 
calculations with regard to the value of his property ; 
K2 



226 THE OLD EEGIME 

they enlarge upon the number and nature of his priv- 
ileges, and especially upon the injury which they in- 
flict upon the neighborhood. They enumerate the 
bushels of wheat which he receives by way of dues ; 
they estimate enviously his revenue, which they say 
is advantageous to no one. The curate's fees — his 
salary, as they have already begun to say — are excess- 
ive ; they remark bitterly that the Church exacts mon- 
ey for every thing, and that a poor man can not even 
be buried gratuitously. As for the taxes, they are all 
ill-distributed and oppressive ; not one obtains favor 
at their hands, and all are spoken of in violent lan- 
guage breathing absolute fury. 

"The indirect taxes are odious," they say; "not 
a household but the tax-gatherer invades ; nothing is 
sacred either from his eyes or his hands. The regis- 
try duties are crushing. The receiver of the taille is 
a tyrant whose cupidity shrinks from no measure of 
annoyance for honest people. The bailiffs are no bet- 
ter ; no honest farmer is safe from their ferocity. The 
collectors are obliged to ruiij their neighbors in order 
to save themselves from the voracity of these despots." 

The inquiry is no mere preliminary of the Revolu- 
tion ; it is part of it, speaks its language, wears its 
features. 

One among the many points of difference between 
the religious revolution of the sixteenth century and 
the French Eevolution is especially striking. In the 
sixteenth century, most of the nobility took the side of 
the new religion from ambitious or interested motives ; 
while the people, on the contrary, embraced it from 
conviction, and without expecting any profit from the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 227 

change. In the eighteenth century this was not the 
case. It was disinterested principle and generous sym- 
pathy which roused the upper classes to revolution, 
while the people were agitated by the bitter feeling of 
their grievances, and a rage to change their condition. 
The enthusiasm of the former fanned the flame of 
popular wrath and covetousness, and ended by arm- 
ing the people. 



228 THE OLD EEOIME 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

OP CERTAIN PRACTICES BY MEANS OP WHICH THE GOVERNMENT 
COMPLETED THE REVOLUTIONARY EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 

THE government had long labored to plant and 
fasten in the popular mind several of those ideas 
which are now called revolutionary — ^principles of hos- 
tility to individual and private rights, and arguments 
in favor of appeals to violence. 

The king set the example of treating the oldest and 
most solidly established institutions with contempt. 
Louis XV. shook the monarchy, and hastened the 
Eevolution as much by his innovations as by his 
vices, by his energy as by his dissipation. When the 
people saw the Parliament — an institution coeval with, 
and apparently as strong as the monarchy— fall and 
disappear, they inferred, in a vague manner, that a pe- 
riod of violence was at hand, when age would prove 
no guarantee of respectability, and novelty no indica- 
tion of risk. 

During the whole course of his reign, Louis XVL 
talked of nothing but reform. The Eevolution over- 
threw very few institutions whose overthrow he did 
not foreshadow. He issued ordinances abolishing 
some of the worst, but he restored them soon after- 
ward, as though he intended only to uproot them, 
leaving to others the task of pulling them down. 

Some of the reforms which he effected changed vio- 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 229 

lently and unexpectedly old and respected customs ; 
others did violence to acquired rights. They paved 
the way for the Revolution less by striking down ob- 
stacles which stood in its way than by showing the 
people how it might be brought about. The mischief 
was aggravated by the pure and disinterested motives 
of the king and his advisers; for no example is so dan- 
gerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning 
people for beneficial objects. 

Long before, Louis XIY. had publicly promulgated 
in his edicts the theory that all the lands in the king- 
dom had been in the origin conditionally granted by 
the state, which was therefore the only real landowner 
— the actual holders having mere possessory rights, 
and an imperfect and questionable title. This doctrine 
sprang out of the feudal system, but it was never open- 
ly professed in France till that system was on the point 
of death ; courts of justice never admitted it. It was 
the mother of modern socialism, which thus, strange 
to say, seems to have been the offspring of royal des- 
potism.'^^ 

During the subsequent reigns, the government took 
pains to teach the people, in practical lessons which 
they could easily understand, that private property 
was to be regarded with contempt. During the sec- 
ond half of the eighteenth century the government was 
seized with a mania for public works ; it took posses- 
sion without scruple of all the lands it required for its 
enterprises, and threw down the houses which stood in 
its way. The Department of Bridges and Eoads was, 
then as now, smitten with admiration for the geomet- 
rical charm of the straight line. It would have noth- 



230 THE OLD REGIME 

ing to do with roads in which there was the slightest 
curve ; to avoid a bend, it would cut through a thou- 
sand estates. Properties thus injured or destroyed were 
always arbitrarily and tardily paid for; sometimes they 
were not paid for at all.* 

When the Provincial Assembly of Lower Normandy 
took the administration of the province out of the hands 
of the intendantjit was ascertained that the price of all 
the lands taken by public authority during the twenty 
years previous was yet unpaid. The debt which the 
state thus owed to this little corner of France amount- 
ed to 250,000 livres. But few large landholders were 
injured ; the burden fell chiefly on the smaller proprie- 
tors, for lands were very generally parceled out into 
small lots. Here were a large number of persons 
whose own experience taught them that private rights 
were not for a moment to be balanced against the pub- 
lic interest : a doctrine they were not likely to forget 
when the time came for its application to their own 
benefit. 

In many parishes persons had bequeathed sums of 
money to be employed in supporting charitable insti- 
tutions for the benefit of the parishioners in certain 
specific cases. Most of these institutions were either 
destroyed or transformed during the later period of the 
monarchy, by mere Orders in Council, that is to say, by 
the arbitrary will of government. The fund was us- 
ually taken away from the village, and bestowed on 
neighboring hospitals. Carrying out the principle still 
farther, the government simultaneously diverted the 
property of the hospitals from its original destination, 
and applied it to purposes of which the founder of the 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 231 

charity would doubtless have disapproved. Much of 
this property had been left to the hospitals, to be held 
by them inalienably : the government authorized them 
to sell it, and to pay over the price to the public treas- 
ury, which was to pay interest thereon. This, the ad- 
ministrators said, was making a better use of the be- 
quest than the testator himself had done. They forgot 
that the very best way to teach men to violate the in- 
dividual rights of the living is to disregard the wishes 
of the dead. No subsequent government has display- 
ed such marked contempt for testamentary injunctions 
as the old monarchy. Never, on any occasion, did it 
evince any of those fastidious scruples which in En- 
gland rally the whole weight of the social body to the 
support of the citizen's last will, and secure for his 
memory a respect that is never paid to his person. 

Requisitions, compulsory sales of produce, the unax- 
iinum, were all in use under the government of the old 
regime. I find that in times of scarcity the public of- 
ficials would fix the price at which farm produce must 
be sold, and punish farmers who refused to send their 
grain to market by the imposition of a fine. 

But the most pernicious of all lessons was that in- 
culcated by judicial proceedings in criminal cases in 
which the people were concerned. Poor men were far 
better protected against the rich and the powerful than 
is generally supposed. But when they had to deal 
with the state, they were judged, as I said before, by 
abnormal tribunals composed of partial judges : the 
proceedings were speedy and delusive ; the decision, 
which was final, might be anticipated by preliminary 
execution. " His majesty appoints the provost of po- 



232 THE OLD REGIME 

lice {prevot de la marechaussee) and his lieutenant to 
take cognizance of all movements and assemblages to 
which the scarcity of provisions may give rise ; or- 
dains that cases shall be heard and decided by them 
summarily and without appeal ; and forbids all courts 
of justice to take cognizance of any such." This Or- 
der in Council was the law throughout the eighteenth 
century. Police reports of the time show that, in cases 
of this -oharacter, suspected villages were surrounded 
at night ; houses were entered before daybreak ; peas- 
ants designated for arrest were seized without other 
warrant or authority. They were often detained for 
a length of time in prison before they could speak to a 
judge, though edicts declared that every person ac- 
cused should be examined within twenty-four hours 
after his arrest. That provision of the law was nei- 
ther less formal nor more respected than it is in our 
own day. 

It was thus that a benign and solidly-established 
government taught the people, day by day, the system 
of criminal procedure best adapted to the requirements 
of revolution and the desires of tyranny. It kept open 
school, and to the last gave to the lower classes this 
perilous education. Even Turgot faithfully copied his 
predecessors in this respect. When his legislation of 
1775 on the subject of breadstuffs gave rise to resist- 
ance in the Parliament and riots in the country parts, 
he obtained from the king an ordinance which removed 
the cases of the rioters from the jurisdiction of the or- 
dinary courts, and gave them exclusively to the cog- 
nizance of the provost. ' ' The police jurisdiction, " the 
ordinance said, " is principally designed to repress pop- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 233 

ular disturbances when it is desirable that speedy ex- 
amples be made." Under this ordinance, peasants 
traveling out of their parish without a certificate signed 
by the curate and the syndic were liable to prosecution 
before the provost, arrest, and punishment as vaga- 
bonds. 

It is true that, under terrible forms, the monarchy 
of the eighteenth century concealed moderate penal- 
ties. Its principle was rather to terrify than to injure ; 
or, rather, it was arbitrary and violent from habit and 
indifference, but, at the same time, instinctively gentle. 
But summary judicial proceedings were none the less 
popular with government. The lighter the penalty, 
the easier the vice of its infliction was forgotten. The 
mildness of the sentence cloaked the harshness of the 
trial. 

I venture to state — for I hold the proofs in my hand 
— ^that precedents and examples for very many of the 
proceedings of the revolutionary government were found 
in the records of the measures employed against the 
lower classes during the two last centuries of the mon- 
archy. The old regime furnished the Eevolution with 
many of its forms ; the latter merely added the atro- 
city of its genius. 



234 THE OLD EEGIME 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

HOW GREAT ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES HAD PRECEDED THE POLIT- 
ICAL REVOLUTION, AND OF THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF. 

BEFORE the form of the government was altered, 
most of the laws regulating the condition of per- 
sons and the administration of public business had 
been repealed or modified. ^ 

The destruction of trade-companies and their par- 
tial and incomplete restoration afterward had wholly 
changed the relation formerly existing between master 
and workman. That relation was now uncertain — con- 
strained. Neither was the old dominical authority in 
a state of preservation, nor the guardianship of the 
state fully developed; so that, between the two, the 
mechanic, cramped and embarassed, knew not to which 
side he ought to look for protection or control. This 
state of uncertainty and anomaly, in which all the 
lower classes of the large cities had been suddenly 
placed, led to very grave consequences when the peo- 
ple appeared on the political stage. 

A year before the Eevolution a royal edict over- 
turned the whole judicial system. New jurisdictions 
were created, old ones abolished, all the old rules gov- 
erning the competency of judges changed. Now I 
have already had occasion to remark that the number 
of persons who were employed in France, either in 
hearing cases or executing judgments, was immense. 
In fact, nearly all the middle class had something to 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 235 

do with the courts. Hence the effect of the law was to 
disturb the condition and means of several thousand 
families, whose situation was rendered uncertain and 
precarious. Nor was it less prejudicial to litigants, 
who, in the judicial confusion, had some trouble in 
finding out the law which was applicable to their case, 
and the court that was to hear it. 

But it was especially the radical reform effected in 
the government proper, in 1787, which threw public 
business into disorder, and brought trouble into the 
home of every private family. 

I stated that in the pays cf election, that is to say, 
in three fourths of France, the whole government of 
each district {generalite) was placed in the hands of a 
single man, the intendant, who was not only uncon- 
trolled, but without advisers. 

In 1787 provincial assemblies were created, which 
became the real governors of the country. In every 
village an elective municipal body took the place of 
the old parochial assemblies, and, generally speaking, 
of the syndic also. 

Thus a system diametrically opposed to the past, 
and completely subversive, not only of the old meth- 
ods of transacting business, but of the relative posi- 
tions of men, had to be applied to every part of the 
country by one uniform plan, quite independently of 
old usages and of the particular situation of the sever- 
al provinces. So profoundly was the old government 
imbued with the unitarian spirit of the Revolution by 
Avhose hands it was to perish. 

It was then plainly seen how large an influence 
habit exercises over the working of political institu- 



236 THE OLD REGIME 

tions, and how imicli more easily men manage their 
affairs with obscure and complicated laws to which 
thej are used than with a far simpler system which is 
new to them. 

There were in France, under the old regime, all 
Idnds of authorities, infinitely diversified according to 
locality, with powers of unknown and unlimited scope, 
so that the field of action of each was always common 
to several others ; yet business was transacted in an 
orderly and tolerably easy manner. The new author- 
ities, on the contrary, which were few in number, care- 
fully limited in their sphere, and harmoniously adjust- 
ed, were no sooner put in force, than they encroached 
upon one another, and clashed, throwing every thing 
into confusion and paralyzing each other. 

The new system, moreover, had a great fault, which 
alone would have rendered its execution difiicult, at 
the outset especially; all the authorities it created 
were corporate. 

Under the old monarchy, but two methods of gov- 
erning were known. Where the government was in 
the hands of a single individual, he acted without the 
concurrence of any assembly. Where, on the other 
hand, assemblies were used, as was the case in ])ays 
d'etats and in cities, the executive power was confided 
to no one in particular : the assembly not only gov- 
erned and controlled the administration, it executed 
the laws, either directly or through the medium of tem- 
porary committees which it appointed. 

These being the only two plans known, when one 
was abandoned the other was adopted. It is not a lit- 
tle singular that, in so enlightened a society, and one 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 237 

in which government had so long played a leading 
part, no one should have thought of combining the two 
systems, and drawing a distinction between the exec- 
utive branch and that which was supervisory or di- 
rectory, without disuniting them. This idea, simple as 
it is, never struck any one ; it is a discovery which 
dates from this century, and almost the only discovery 
in administrative science that we can fairly claim. We 
shall perceive the effects of the contrary system when 
we see the old administrative methods applied to poK- 
tics, the traditions of the detested old regime followed, 
and the plan of the Provincial States and small munici- 
palities adopted by the ;N"ational Convention. Causes 
which had formerly led to nothing but embarassment 
in the transaction of public business then gave rise to 
the Reign of Terror. 

The Provincial Assemblies of 1787 were authorized 
to administer their own government, and to supersede 
the intendant in almost all matters. They were intrust- 
ed with the distribution and levy of the taille, under the 
authority of the central government, and with the se- 
lection and general direction of all public works. All 
the agents of the Bridges and Eoads, from the inspect- 
or to the overseer of works, were under their immediate 
orders. The assemblies decided according, to their own 
discretion what was to be done, reported to the minis- 
ters, suggested the names of persons deserving reward. 
They were the guardians of the communes, heard most 
of the lawsuits which had formerly been brought be- 
fore the intendant, &c., and discharged a variety of 
functions that were ill suited to a corporate and irre- 
sponsible body, especially when composed of persons 
who were entirely new to such duties. 



238 THE OLD REGIME 

The confusion was completed by an error ; the in- 
tendant was stripped of his power, but the office was 
retained. After being deprived of their absolute au- 
thority, the intendants were expected to aid the assem- 
bly and supervise its acts — as though a fallen function- 
ary could ever help to execute and enter into the spir- 
it of laws which dispossess him. 

A similar course was adopted with regard to the of- 
fice of sub-delegate. District assemblies were appoint- 
ed to discharge its functions under the dkection of the 
Provincial Assembly, and on similar principles. 

From all that we can learn of the proceedings of the 
Provincial Assemblies of 1787, including their own re- 
ports, it would appear that from the first they found 
themselves at war, sometimes open, sometimes secret, 
with the intendants, who employed all their superior 
business experience in defeating the aims of their suc- 
cessors.^ One assembly complains that it can hardly 
succeed in wresting from the hands of the intendant 
the most necessary papers. Another is accused by the 
intendant of seeking to usurp powers which the edicts 
reserve to him. He appeals to the minister, who makes 
no answer, or answers doubtfully, being as new to the 
business as the others. Sometimes the assembly de- 
cides that the intendant has been guilty of maladmin- 
istration, that the roads he has made are in the wrong 
direction or in bad repair ; he is accused of ruining the 
communities whose guardian he was. In their inex- 
perience, every thing is obscure to the assemblymen, 
and they often hesitate, send to distant assemblies for 
advice, keep couriers constantly on the road from one 
to another. The intendant of Audi pretends that he 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 239 

is entitled to oppose the assembly, wliicli had author- 
ized a commune to tax itself; the assembly replies 
that in this matter the intendant may offer advice, but 
nothing more, and sends to the assembly of He de 
France to ask what that body thinks on the point. 

These recriminations and interchange of opinions 
often delay, and sometimes stop altogether, the transac- 
tion of public business. National life seems suspend- 
ed. The Provincial Assembly of Lorraine — a mere 
echo of others — declares that " the stagnation of pub- 
lic business is complete, and all good citizens are af- 
flicted thereat." 

Others of these new administrations go wrong by 
excessive activity and self-reliance ; they are ftdl of a 
restless and disturbing zeal, which prompts them to 
want to change all the old methods with a stroke of 
the pen, and to correct the most deeply-rooted abuses 
in a day. Under the pretext that they are henceforth 
the guardians of cities, they assume the management 
of municipal affairs ; in a word, their efforts to improve 
matters succeed in throwing every thing into confusion. 

JSTow consider th« immense influence which the gov- 
ernment had long exercised in France, the multitude 
of interests which it affected, the vast number of affairs 
which depended on it for support or aid ; bear in mind 
that private individuals relied more on it than on them- 
selves to secure the success of their own business, to 
develop their industry, to insure their means of sub- 
sistence, to make and mend their roads, to preserve 
the peace among them, and to guarantee their well- 
being ; and then calculate how many individuals must 
have been personal sufferers by its disorder. 



240 THE OLD REGIME 

The vices of the new organization were more con- 
spicuous in the villages than any where else ; for there 
it not only disturbed the old divisions of authority, but 
changed suddenly the relative position of individuals, 
and drove the several orders into mutual hostility. 

When Turgot, in 1775, proposed to the king to re- 
form the administration of the rural districts, the great- 
est difficulty he met with, as he states himself, arose 
from the unequal distribution of taxes. For the chief 
parochial business was the distribution, levy, and ap- 
propriation of the taxes, and how was it possible to 
make people, on whom they pressed unequally, and 
some of whom were wholly exempt from them, delib- 
erate and act in concert on their subject ? Every par- 
ish contained some men of rank, or churchmen, who 
paid no taille, peasants who were partially or wholly 
exempt, others who paid an integral share. These 
formed three distinct parishes, each of which would 
have required a separate administration. The prob- 
lem was insoluble. 

Nowhere was the inequality of taxation so conspicu- 
ous as in the country ; nowhere were people so divid- 
ed into distinct and mutually hostile classes. Before 
attempting a collective administration and a free gov- 
ernment in villages, the taxes should have been equal- 
ized, and distinctions of class mid rank modified. 

This was not the plan pursued when reform was at- 
tempted in 1787. Within the parish, the old distinc- 
tions of rank were maintained with the unequal taxa- 
tion which marked them ; yet the whole government 
was intrusted to elective bodies. This led directly to 
most singular results. 



AND THE KEVOLUTION. 241 

The curate and tlie seignior had no business to ap- 
pear in the assembly which elected municipal officers ; 
for they were respectively members of the orders of the 
clergy and the nobility, while the officials elected were 
the special representatives of the Third Estate. 

But when the Municipal Council was chosen, the 
curate and the seignior were members ex officio, for it 
would not have been seemly to exclude from the gov- 
ernment of the parish its two leading inhabitants. It 
was the seignior who presided over the municipal coun- 
cilors, though he had not contributed to elect them, 
and could not take part in the bulk of their acts. 
Neither seignior nor curate, for instance, could vote on 
the distribution or levy of the taille, in consequence 
of their exemption. In return, the Council could not 
interfere with their capitation-tax, which continued to 
be regulated according to particular forms by the in- 
tendant. 

Lest this president — so carefully isolated from the 
body which he was said to direct — should still exer- 
cise an indirect influence in opposition to the interest 
of the order to which he did not belong, it was pro- 
posed to disfranchise his tenants ; and the Provincial 
Assemblies, to which the point was referred, consid- 
ered the proposal proper, and in conformity with cor- 
rect principle. Other men of rank, resident in the par- 
ish, were excluded from this municipal body, unless 
they were elected by the peasants ; and then, as the 
regulation is careful to observe, they were represent- 
atives of the Third Estate alone. 

The seignior then only appeared there to exhibit his 
subjection to his old subjects, who were now his mas- 

L 



242 THE OLD KEGIME 

ters, while he was more like their prisoner than their 
chief. Indeed, the principal object of the assemblage 
appeared to be less to bring the different ranks to- 
gether than to show them how widely they differed, 
and how adverse their interests were. 

Was the office of syndic still so discredited that it 
was never willingly accepted, or had it risen in im- 
portance side by side with the community whose chief 
agency it was ? 'No one knew precisely. ^ I have seen 
a letter from a village bailiff of 1788, complaining in- 
dignantly that he has been elected syndic, " which is 
in violation of the privileges of his office." The comp- 
troller-general replied that the ideas of this personage 
required to be rectified ; " that he must be made to 
understand that it was an honor to be elected by his 
fellow-citizens; and that, moreover, the new syndics 
would not resemble the functionaries hitherto known 
by the title, and might expect more consideration at 
the hands of government." 

On the other, hand, the moment the peasantry be- 
came a power in the state, the leading citizens of the 
parishes and men of rank were suddenly attracted to 
their side. A seignior and high justiciary of a village 
near Paris complained that the edict prevented his 
taking part, even as a simple inhabitant of the parish, 
in the proceedings of the parochial assembly. Others 
" consent," they said, " to devote themselves for the 
pubKc good, and accept the office of syndic." 

It came too late. In proportion to the advances of 
the wealthy classes, the people of the rural districts 
shrank back ; when they tried to mingle with them, 
the people sheltered themselves in the isolation into 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 243 

wliicli they had been driven. Some municipal as- 
semblies declined to admit their seignior as a mem- 
ber ; others made all sorts of objections to the recep- 
tion of commoners who were rich. The Provincial 
Assembly of Lower Normandy states, " We are in- 
formed that several municipal assemblies have refused 
to admit absentee landholders, who, as commoners, 
have an indisputable right to seats there. Other as- 
semblies have declined to admit farmers who owned 
no land within their jurisdiction." 

Thus all was novelty, obscurity, conflict between the 
secondary laws, even before the chief laws which regu- 
lated the government of the state had been touched. 
Those which were still in force were shaken, and there 
was not a law or a regulation which the government 
had not announced its intention to abolish or modify. 

Our Revolution, then, was preceded by a sudden and 
thorough remodeling of all administrative rules and 
habits. The event is barely remembered now, yet it 
was one of the greatest perturbations that ever marked 
the liistory of a great people. It was a first revolution, 
which exercised a prodigious influence over the second, 
and rendered it a very different affair from aU former 
or subsequent revolutions. 

The first English revolution, though it overthrew 
the political constitution of the country, and for a time 
abolished royalty itself, barely touched the secondary 
class of laws, and made no change in the prevailing 
customs and usages. Justice and government were 
administered in the old forms and in the beaten track. 
At the height of the civil war, it is said that the twelve 
judges of England continued their semi-annual circuits 



244 THE OLD EEaiME 

throughout the country to hold the assizes. The agi- 
tation was not universal. The effects of the revolution 
were circumscribed, and English society, though shak- 
en at the -top, was unmoved at the base. 

We have ourselves seen in France, since 1789, sev- 
eral revolutions which have altered the whole edifice 
of government. Most of them have been very sudden, 
and- have been achieved by violence, in open violation 
of existing laws. Yet none have given rise to long 
continued or general disorder ; they have been scarce- 
ly felt, in some cases hardly noticed by the majority 
of the nation. 

The reason is that, since 1789, the administrative 
system has always remained untouched in the midst 
of political convulsions. The person of the sovereign 
or the form of the central power has been altered, but 
the daily transaction of business has neither been dis- 
turbed nor interrupted. Each citizen has remained 
subject to the laws and usages which he understood, 
in the small matters which concerned him personally. 
He had to deal with secondary authorities, with which 
he had done business before, and which were rarely 
changed. For if each revolution struck off the head of 
the government, it left its body untouched and alive, 
so that the same functionaries continued to perform 
their functions, in the same spirit, and according to the 
same routine, under every different political system. 
They administered justice or managed public affairs in 
the name of the king, then in that of the republic, last- 
ly in that of the emperor. Fortune's wheel turning on 
and on, the same individuals began again to administer 
and manage in the same way for the king, for the re- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 245 

public, for the emperor ; what mattered the name of 
the master ? It was their business to be good admin- 
istrators and managers — not citizens. Thus, the first 
shock over, it seemed as though nothing had changed 
in the country. 

At the outbreak of the Eevolution, those branches 
of the government which, though subordinate, are most 
felt by individuals, and exercise the largest and most 
steady- influence on their welfare, had just been over- 
turned ; the government had suddenly changed all its 
agents and all its principles. At first the state did not 
seem to have felt a severe shock from this sweeping 
reform ; but every Frenchman had experienced a slight 
commotion. Not a man but was affected either in his 
rank, or in his habits, or in his business. Though 
great state affairs continued to be transacted in a sort 
of regular order, in those smaller transactions which 
constitute the routine of every-day life, no one knew 
whom to obey, where to apply, how to act. 

Every part of the nation being thus thrown off the 
level, one final blow was enough to set the whole in 
motion, and produce the greatest convulsion and the 
most terrible disorders that were ever witnessed. 



246 THE OLD REGIME 



CHAPTEE XX. 

HOW THE REVOLUTION SPRANG SPONTANEOUSLY OUT OF THE PRE- 
CEDING FACTS. 

IDESIEE, in conclusion, to put together some of 
the features which I have separately sketched, and, 
having drawn the portrait of the old regime, to watch 
the Revolution spring from it by its own unaided effort. 

Let it be borne in mind that France was the only 
country in which the feudal system had preserved its 
injurious and irritating characteristics, while it had lost 
all those which were beneficial or useful ; and it will 
seem less surprising that the Revolution which was to 
abolish the old constitution of Europe should have 
broken out there rather than elsewhere. 

Let it also be borne in mind that France was the 
only feudal country in which the nobility had lost its 
old political rights, lost the right of administering gov- 
ernment and leading the people, but had nevertheless 
retained and even largely increased its pecuniary in- 
demnities and the individual privileges of its members ; 
had, in its subordinate position, remained a close body, 
growing less and less of an aristocracy and more and 
more of a caste ; and it will at once be understood why 
its privileges seemed so inexplicable and detestable to 
the French, and why their hearts were inflamed with 
a democratic envy that is not yet extinguished. 

Let it be borne in mind, finally, that the nobility 
was separated from the middle classes, which it had 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 247 

eschewed, and from the people, whose affections it had 
lost ; that it stood alone in the midst of the nation, 
seemingly the staff of an army, really a group of sol- 
dierless officers ; and it will be easy to conceive how, 
after an existence of a thousand years, it was over- 
thrown in a single night. 

I have shown how the royal government abolished 
the provincial liberties, usurped the place of the local 
authorities in three fourths of the kingdom, and mo- 
nopolized public business, great and small ; and I have 
also shown how Paris consequently became of neces- 
sity the master of the country instead of the capital, or 
rather, became itself the whole country. These two 
facts, which were peculiar to France, would alone suf- 
fice to show how a revolt could achieve the overthrow 
of a monarchy which had endured so violent shocks 
during so many centuries, and which, on the eve of its 
destruction, seemed immovable to its very assailants.^ 

Political life had been so long and so thoroughly ex- 
tinguished in France — individuals had so entirely lost 
the habit of mixing in public affairs, of judging for 
themselves, of studying popular movements, and even 
understanding the people at all, that the French quite 
naturally drifted into a terrible revolution without see- 
ing it — the very parties who had most to fear from it 
taking the lead, and undertaking to smooth and widen 
the way for its approach. 

In the absence of free institutions, and, consequent- 
ly, of political classes, active political bodies, or organ- 
ized parties, the duty of leading public opinion, when 
it revived, naturally fell to the lot of philosophers. 
Hence it might be expected that the Eevolution would 



248 THE OLD REGIME 

be conducted less in view of specific facts than in con- 
formity with abstract principles and general theories. 
It might be conjectured that, instead of assailing spe- 
cific laws, it would attack all laws together, and would 
assume to substitute for the old Constitution of France 
a new system of government which these writers had 
conceived. 

The Church was mixed with all the old institutions 
that were to be destroyed. Hence it was plain that 
the Revolution would shake the religious while it over- 
threw the civil power ; and this done, and men's minds 
set free from all the restraints which religion, custom, 
and law impose on reformers, it was impossible to say 
to what unheard-of lengths of boldness it might not 
go. Every careful student of the state of the country 
could perceive that there were no lengths of boldness 
that were too distant, no pitch of violence too frantic 
to be attempted. 

"What!" cried Burke, in one of his eloquent pam- 
phlets, " one can not find a man that can answer for 
the smallest district ; not a man who can answer for 
his neighbor. People are arrested in their houses for 
royalism, for moderation, or any thing else, and no one 
ever resists." , Burke had no idea of the state in which 
the monarchy he so deeply regretted had left us. The 
old government had deprived the French of the power 
I and the desire to help each other. When the Eevolu- 
tion broke out, there were not ten men in the greater 
! part of France who were in the habit of acting in con- 
1 cert, in a regular manner, and providing for their own 
I defense; every^ thing was left to the central power. 
1 And so, when that power made way for an irresponsi- 



AND THE EEVOLUTION. 249 

We sovereign assembly, and exchanged its former mild- 
ness for ferocity, there was nothing to check or delay 
it for an instant. The same cause which had over- 
thrown the monarchy had rendered every thing possi- 
ble after its fall. 

At no former period had religious toleration, gentle- 
ness in the exercise of authority, humanity, and be- 
nevolence, been so generally advocated or so thorough- 
ly accepted as sound doctrine as during the eighteenth 
century: the very spirit of war — last refuge of the 
spirit of violence — had been limited, and its rigors 
softened. Out of the bosom of this refined society how 
inhuman a revolution was about to spring ! And yet 
the refinement was no mere pretense, for no sooner had 
the first fury of the Eevolution been deadened than the 
spirit of the laws and political customs was softened 
and assuaged. 

To comprehend the contrast between the benign the- 
ories and the violent acts of the Eevolution, one must 
remember that it was prepared by the most civilized 
classes of the nation, and executed by the roughest 
and most unpolished. The former having no bond of 
mutual union, no common understanding among them- 
selves, no hold on the people, the latter assumed the 
whole direction of affairs when the old authorities were 
abolished. Even where they did not govern they in- 
spired the government ; and a glance at the way they 
had lived under the old regime left no room for doubt 
as to what they would prove. 

The very peculiarities of their condition endowed 
them with some rare virtues. They had long been 
free and landholders ; they were temperate and proud 
L2 



250 THE OLD KEGIME 

in their independent isolation. They were hardened 
to toil, careless of the refinements of life, resigned to 
misfortune however great, firm in the face of danger. 
A simple, manly race, hereafter to constitute armies 
under which Europe shall bow the neck ; but hence, 
also, a dangerous master. Crushed for centuries under 
the weight of abuses which no one shared with them, 
living alone, and brooding silently over their preju- 
dices, their jealousies, and their hatreds, they were 
hardened by their hard experience, and were as ready 
to inflict as to bear sufibring. 

Such was the French people when it laid hands on 
the government, and undertook to complete the work 
of the Revolution. It found in books a theory which 
it assumed to put in practice, shaping the ideas of the 
writers to suit its passions. 

The careful student of France during the eighteenth 
century must have noticed in the preceding pages the 
birth and development of two leading passions, which 
were not' coeval, and not always similar in their ten- 
dencies. 

One — ^the deepest and most solidly rooted — was a 
violent, unquenchable hatred of inequality. It took 
its rise and grew in the face of marked inequalities ; 
drove the French with steady, irresistible force to 
seek to destroy utterly all the remains of the mediae- 
val institutions ; and prompted the erection on their 
ruins of a society in which all men should be alike, 
and as equal in rank as humanity dictates. 

The other — of more recent date, and less solidly 
rooted — prompted men to seek to be free as well as 
equal. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 251 

Toward the close of the old regime th^se two pas- 
sions were equally sincere, and apparently equally ac- 
tive ; they met at the opening of the Eevolution, and, 
blending together into one, they took fire from contact, 
and inflamed the whole heart of France. No doubt 
1789 was a period of inexperience, but it was also a 
period of generosity, of enthusiasm, of manliness, of 
greatness — -a period of immortal memory, upon which 
men will look back with admiration and respect when 
aU who witnessed it, and we who follow them, shall 
have long since passed away. The French were then 
proud enough of their cause and of themselves to be- 
lieve that they could enjoy freedom and equality to- 
gether. They planted, therefore, free institutions in 
the midst of democratic institutions. JSFot content with 
pulverizing the superannuated laws which divided men 
into classes, castes, corporations, and endowed them 
with rights more unequal even than their ranks, they 
likewise annulled at a blow those other laws which 
were a later creation of the royal power, and which 
had stripped the nation of all control over itself, and 
s&t over every Frenchman a government to be his pre- 
ceptor, his tutor, and, in case of need, his oppressor. 
Centralization fell with absolute monarchy. 

But when the vigorous generation which began the 
Eevolution perished or became enervated, as all gener- 
ations must which undertake such enterprises ; when, 
in the natural course of events of this character, the 
love of liberty had been discouraged and grown lan- 
guid in the midst of anarchy and popular despotism, 
and the bewildered nation began to grope around for a 
master, immense facilities were offered for the restora- 



252 THE OLD EEGIME 

tion of absolute government; and it was easy for the 
genius of him who was destined both to continue and 
to destroy the Revolution to discover them. 

The old regime contained, in fact, a large body of in- 
stitutions of modern type which, not being hostile to 
equality, were susceptible of being used in the new or- 
der of things, and yet offered remarkable facilities for 
the establishment of despotism. They were sought for 
and found in the midst of the ruins. They had for- 
merly given birth to habits, passions, and ideas which 
tended to keep men divided and obedient ; they were 
restored and turned to account. Centralization was 
raised from its tomb and restored to its place ; whence 
it happened that, all the checks which had formerly 
served to limit its power being destroyed, and not re- 
vived, there sprang out of the bosom of a nation which 
had just overthrown royalty a power more extensive, 
more detailed, more absolute than any of our monarchs 
had ever wielded. The enterprise seemed incredibly 
bold and unprecedentedly successful, because people 
only thought of what they saw before them, and forgot 
the past. The despot fell ; but the most substantial 
portion of his work remained : his administrative sys- 
tem survived his government. And ever since, when- 
ever an attempt has been made to overthrow an abso- 
lute government, the head of Liberty has been simply 
planted on the shoulders of a servile body. 

During the period that has elapsed since the Revo- 
lution, the passion for liberty has frequently been ex- 
tinguished again, and again revived. This will long 
be the case, for it is still inexperienced, ill regulated, 
easily discouraged, easily frightened away, easily over- 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 253 

come, superficial, and evanescent. Meanwhile, the 
passion for equality has retained its place at the bot- 
tom of the hearts it originally penetrated, and link- 
ed with their dearest sentiments. While the one is 
incessantly changing, now increasing, now diminish- 
ing, now gaining strength, now losing it, according to 
events, the other has remained uniformly the same, 
striving for its object with obstinate and often blind 
ardor, willing to sacrifice every thing to gain it, and 
ready to repay its grant from government by cultivat- 
ing such habits, ideas, and laws as a despotism may 
require. 

The Eevolution will ever remain in darkness to 
those who do not look beyond it ; it can only be com-, 
prehended by the light of the ages which preceded it. 
Without a clear view of society in the olden time, of 
its laws, its faults, its prejudices, its suffering, its great- 
ness, it is impossible to understand the conduct of the 
French during the sixty years which have followed its 
fall ; and even that view will not suffice without some 
acquaintance with the natural history of our nation. 

When I examine that nation in itself, I can not help 
thinking it is more extraordinary than any of the events 
of its history. Did there ever appear on the earth an- 
other nation so fertile in contrasts, so extreme in its 
acts — more under the dominion of feeling, less ruled by 
principle ; always better or worse than was anticipat- 
ed — now below the level of humanity, now far above ; 
a people so unchangeable in its leading features that it 
may be recognized by portraits drawn two or three 
thousand years ago, and yet so fickle in its daily opin- 
ions and tastes that it becomes at last a mystery to it- 



254 THE OLD REGIME 

self, and is as much astonished as strangers at the sight 
of what it has done ; naturally fond of home and rou- 
tine, yet, once driven forth and forced to adopt new 
customs, ready to carry principles to any lengths and 
to dare any thing ; indocile by disposition, "but better 
pleased with the arbitrary and even violent rule of a 
sovereign than with a free and regular government un- 
der its chief citizens ; now fixed in hostility to subjec- 
tion of any kind, now so passionately wedded to servi- 
tude that nations made to serve can not vie with it ; 
led by a thread so long as no word of resistance is 
spoken, whoUy ungovernable when the standard of re- 
volt has been raised — thus always deceiving its mas- 
ters, who fear it too much or too little ; never so free 
that it can not be subjugated, nor so kept down that it 
can not break the yoke ; qualified for every pursuit, 
but excelling in nothing but war ; more prone to wor- 
ship chance, force, success, eclat, noise, than real glory ; 
endowed with more heroism than virtue, more genius 
than common sense ; better adapted for the conception 
of grand designs than the accomplishment of great en- 
'terprises; the most brilliant and the most dangerous 
nation of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire 
admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, but never indiffer- 
ence ? 

'No nation but such a one as this could give birth 
to a revolution so sudden, so radical, so impetuous in 
its course, and yet so full of missteps, contradictory 
facts, and conflicting examples. The French could not 
have done it but for the reasons I have alleged ; but, it 
must be admitted, even these reasons would not suffice 
to explain such a revolution in any country but France. 



AND THE REVOLUTION. 255 

I have now reached the threshold of that memora- 
ble Kevolution. I shall not cross it now. Soon, per- 
haps, I may be enabled to do so. I shall then pass 
over its causes to examine it in itself, and to judge 
the society to which it gave birth. 



APPENDIX, 



OF THE PAYS D'ETATS, AND LANGUEDOC IN PARTICULAR. 

IT is not my intention to examine in detail, in this 
place, the condition of affairs in each of the jpays 
d^etats, as they stood before the Kevolution. 

I merely design to state how many there were ; 
which of them Were distinguished by local activity ; 
on what footing they stood as regards the royal gov- 
ernment ; wherein they departed from the rules I have 
mentioned, and in what particulars they were govern- 
ed by these rules ; and, lastly, to show, by the exam- 
ple of one of them, what they all might have become. 

States had existed in most of the French provinces 
— that is to say, their government had been adminis- 
tered by members of the Three Estates {gens des trots 
etats), as it was then the fashion to say ; in other 
words, by an assembly composed of representatives of 
the clergy, the nobility, and the burghers. This pro- 
vincial institution, like most of the political institu- 
tions of the Middle Ages, had flourished in a similar 
form throughout almost all civilized Europe, orj at all 
events, in every country into which German customs 
and ideas had made their way. In many German 
provinces States existed up to the French Kevolution ; 
in the others they did not disappear till the seven-- 
teenth or eighteenth century. For two centuries sov- 



258 APPENDIX. 

ereigns liad uniformly and steadily waged war against 
them, sometimes openly, sometimes secretly. No at- 
tempt had been any where made to adapt them to the 
improved condition of the times ; but monarchs had 
never let slip an opportunity of destroying them, or de- 
forming them when this was the worst they could do. 

In France there were but five provinces of any ex- 
tent, and a few small, insignificant districts, in which 
States still existed in 1789. Provincial liberty, prop- 
erly speaking, subsisted in two only, Bretagne and 
Languedoc ; every where else the substantial features 
of the institution had been taken away, leaving only 
the semblance behind. 

I shall examine Languedoc separately, and at some 
length. 

It was the largest and most populous of the pays 
d'Hats. It contained more than two thousand com- 
munes, or, as they were then called, communities, and 
nearly two millions of inhabitants. It was, moreover, 
the best ordered and prosperous, as well as the largest 
of these provinces. We may therefore learn, from an 
inquiry into its condition, what provincial liberty was 
under the old regime, and to what extent, in those sec- 
tions of country where it was most vigorous, it had 
been subordinated to the royal power. 

In Languedoc the Estates could not meet without 
an express order from the king. Each member must 
have received individually a letter addressed to him in- 
viting him to be present at each session. Hence a 
malcontent of the time remarked : * ' Of the three bodies 
which compose our Estates, one, the clergy, is appoint- 
ed by the king, as all livings and bishoprics are in his 



APPENDIX. 259 

gift ; and the two others are assumed to Tbe in the same 
position, for the king can prevent any member from 
Ibeing present by simply withholding the invitation, 
though the member excluded has not been exiled or 
even put on his trial." 

The period when the session of the Estates must 
end was likewise fixed by the king. An Order in 
Council limited their ordinary sessions to forty days. 
The king was represented in the assembly by com- 
missioners who had seats whenever they chose to de- 
mand them, and were the organ of the government. 
The authority of the Estates was strictly limited. 
They could come to no important decision, pass no 
appropriation bill, without an Order in Council approv- 
ing the measure : they could neither impose a tax, nor 
effect a loan, nor institute an action at law without the 
express permission of the king. All their rules, in- 
cluding those which regulated their own sittings, were 
invalid till the king had sanctioned them. Their re- 
ceipts and expenditures, their budget, as we should 
say at present, was subject to the same control. 

The government exercised the same political rights 
in Languedoc as elsewhere. Whatever laws it chose 
to promulgate, whatever general rules it laid down, 
whatever measures it took, applied to Languedoc as 
well as the j)ays d^ election. It performed the natural 
functions of government, maintained the same police, 
employed the same agents there as elsewhere, and cre- 
ated, from time to time, a host of new functionaries, 
whose offices the province was obliged to buy up at 
very high rates. 

Languedoc, lilie the other provinces, was governed 



260 APPENDIX. 

by an intendant. In every district this intendant had 
sub-delegates, who were in relation with the heads of 
the communities, and directed them. The intendant 
was public guardian, precisely as in the 'pays d^ elec- 
tion. The smallest village, buried in the gorges of 
the Cevennes, could not make the least outlay without 
being authorized by an Order in Council from Paris. 
That branch of legal business wjiich is now called the 
Department of Private Claims {contentieux adminis- 
tratif) was even more extensive there than elsewhere. 
The intendant had original jurisdiction over all ques- 
tions of highways and roads, and generally over all dis- 
putes in which the government was, or chose to con- 
sider itself, interested. Nor were government agents 
less carefully protected there than elsewhere against 
prosecutions by citizens who were aggrieved by them. 

"Wherein, then, did Lang-uedoc differ from the other 
provinces ? How came it to be so envied by its neigh- 
bors ? It differed from the rest of France in three re- 
spects : 

1st. It possessed an assembly composed of substan- 
tial men, enjoying the confidence of the people and the 
respect of the general government. No government 
functionary, or, as they were called, king's officer, could 
be a member. The assembly discussed freely and 
seriously the affairs of the province every year. The 
proximity of this centre of intelligence obliged the gov- 
ernment to exercise its privileges very cautiously and 
moderately: though its agents and its tendencies were 
the same there as elsewhere, they produced very differ- 
ent results. 

2dly. Many public works were carried on in Lan- 



APPENDIX. 261 

guedoc at the cost of the king and directed by his 
agents ; others were partly defrayed and substantially 
directed by the crown ; but a still larger number were 
executed at the cost of the province. When the king 
had once approved the design and authorized the out- 
lay necessary for the latter, they were prosecuted by 
officials chosen by the States, under the inspection of 
commissioners selected from the assembly. 

3dly. The province was entitled to levy, in the way 
it liked best, a portion of the royal taxes, and all the 
taxes that were required for its own necessities. 

We shall now see the use which Languedoc made 
of these privileges. It is a matter which deserves close 
attention. 

A most striking feature in the pays d^ election was 
the rarity of local taxes. The general taxes were oft- 
en burdensome, but the province spent little or nothing 
on itself. In Languedoc, on the contrary, enormous 
sums were spent by the province for public works ; in 
1780 the annual appropriation exceeded 7,000,000 
livres. 

The central government was occasionally shocked at 
such extravagance. It began to fear that such appro- 
priations would exhaust the province, and incapacitate 
it from paying the royal taxes. It reproached the 
States with a want of moderation. I have read a me- 
morial in which the assembly replied to these criti- 
cisms. A few extracts from that document will de- 
pict the spirit which animated that little government 
better than any thing I could say. 

The memorial admits that the province has certain- 
ly undertaken and is prosecuting immense works ; but. 



262 APPENDIX. 

instead of apologizing therefor, it declares that, if the 
king has no objection, this policy will be still farther 
carried out. The province has already improved and 
facilitated the navigation of the chief rivers which cross 
its territory, and is now engaged in prolonging the 
Burgundy Canal — which was constructed under Louis 
XIY., and is now inadequate — through Lower Langue- 
doc, by Cette and Agde to the Ehone. It has adapted 
the port of Cette to commercial purposes, and keeps 
it in repair at great expense. These outlays, it is ob- 
served, are for national rather than provincial objects, 
but the province has made them, as it will be the chief 
gainer by the works. It is further engaged in drain- 
ing and reclaiming the marsh of Aigues-Mortes. But 
its chief outlays have been for roads. It has either 
opened or repaired all the high roads which traverse 
its surface and lead into neighboring provinces. It 
has mended all the roads between the diiferent cities 
and bourgs of Languedoc. All these roads are ex- 
cellent even in winter, and compare very favorably 
with the hard, rough, ill-kept roads which are met with 
in most of the neighboring provinces, such as Dau- 
phine, Quercy, and Bordeaux (which, it is observed, 
axe pays d' election). On this head the memorial refers 
to the judgment of travelers and merchants; nor with- 
out reason, for Arthur Young, who traveled through 
the country a year afterward, notes, "Languedoc, pays 
d'etat — good roads, made without eorvees.'"'' 

If the king will grant permission, continues the 
memorial, the Estates will do more yet; they will 
undertake to improve the parish roads, which affect as 
many interests as the others. " For if produce," con- 



APPENDIX. 263 

tinned the memorial, " can not find its way from the 
producer's barn to the market, it is of very little use 
to provide for its exportation to a distance." " The 
principle of the States with regard to public works," 
the memorial adds, "has always been to look at their 
usefulness, not at their cost." Rivers, canals, roads, 
give value to all products of the soil and of industry, 
by facilitating their conveyance at all seasons and at 
small expense to a market, and spreading commercial 
activity throughout the province; they are always 
worth more than they cost. Moreover, works of this 
character, if undertaken moderately, and spread uni- 
formly over the territory of the province, sustain the 
value of labor, and give employment to the poor. 
" The king," adds the memorial, proudly, "■ need be at 
no expense for the establishment of work -houses in 
Languedoc, as he has been obliged to do in the rest of 
France. We seek no favors of the kind : the works 
of public utility which we undertake ourselves stand 
us in the stead of work-houses, and furnish a remun- 
erative demand for all our labor." 

The more I study the regulations which the kin^ 
permitted the States of Languedoc to establish in those 
branches of administration which were left under their 
control, the more I admire the wisdom, the equity, the 
mildness which characterize them, and the more sat- 
isfied am I of the superiority of the policy of the local 
government over that which obtained in the provinces 
administered by the king. 

The province was divided into communities, towns, 
or villages — into administrative districts, which were 
called dioceses ; and, lastly, into three great depart- 



264 APPENDIX. 

ments, called senechaussees. Each of^ these divisions 
was separately represented in the Assembly ; each had 
its own separate government, which acted under the 
direction of the States or the king. Public works for 
the benefit of any particular division were only under- 
taken when that division expressed a desire for them. 
If the work demanded by the community would be 
beneficial to the diocese, the latter was bound to bear 
a proportionate share of the expense. If the sene- 
chaussee was interested, it paid a share. But diocese, 
senechaussee, and province were all bound to contrib- 
ute to works which the interests of a community re- 
quired, if they were necessary, and beyond the means 
of the body directly concerned ; for, as the States fre- 
quently observed, " The fundamental principle of our 
constitution is that all the divisions of the province 
are jointly and severally liable to each other, and bound 
to contribute to each other's progress." 

Works undertaken by the province were required 
to have been planned deliberately, and to have received 
the assent of all the secondary bodies concerned. All 
labor consumed was paid for in cash ; corvees were un- 
known. I have stated that in j)ays d' election land 
taken for objects of public utility was always tardily 
and inadequately paid for, and that occasionally the 
owner was not paid at all. This was one of the lead- 
ing grievances of the Provincial Assemblies when they 
met in 1787. Some even complained that it was im- 
possible to estimate the debts that had been thus in- 
curred, as the property taken had been destroyed or 
transformed before it had been valued. In Languedoc, 
every foot of land taken from its owner was caarefully 



APPENDIX. 265 

valued before it was touched, and the value paid he- 
fore the expiration of a year from the time the works 
were begun. 

This system of the States of Languedoc with regard 
to public works appeared so excellent to the central 
government, that, without imitating, it admired it. The 
Royal Council, after having authorized its establish- 
ment, had it printed at the royal printing-office, and 
sent it to the intendants as a useful document to con- 
sult. 

All that I have said with regard to public works is 
applicable, even in a greater degree, to that other and 
equally important branch of the provincial administra- 
tion, the collection of the taxes. When one examines 
this department, first in the kingdom, then in the prov- 
ince, it seems impossible to believe that both are parts 
of the same empire. 

I had occasion some time since to mention that the 
system used in Languedoc for the distribution and col- 
lection of the taille was substantially the same as the 
one now employed for the collection of our modern im- 
posts. I shall not again revert to the subject, but will 
add simply that the province was so weU convinced of 
the superiority of its method that, whenever the king 
established new taxes, the States paid heavily for the 
right of levying them in their own way, and by the 
hands of their own agents. 

Notwithstanding all the outlays I have enumerated, 
the financial condition of Languedoc was so prosper- 
ous, and her credit so well established, that the central 
government often applied to it for endorsements, and 
borrowed in the name of the province at lower rates 

M 



266 APPENDIX. 

than woTilcl have been charged to the crown. I find 
that Languedoc borrowed in its own name, but for the 
use of the king, in the later years of the monarchy, 
73,200,000 livres. 

Yet the government watched these provincial liber- 
ties with a very jealous eye. E-ichelieu first mutilated, 
then abolished them. The weak and slothful Louis 
XIII., who loved nothing, detested them : he had such 
a dislike for provincial privileges, according to Boulain- 
viUiers, that he would fly into a rage at the mere men- 
tion of the subject. Weak minds always find energy 
enough to hate things which oblige them to exert them- 
selves ; their whole vigor is concentrated upon that 
one point, and, weak as they are every where else, they 
contrive to hate with some force. Good fortune hap- 
pily restored the Constitution of Languedoc during the 
infancy of Louis XIV. ; and that monarch, regarding 
it as his work, respected it. Louis XV. suspended it 
for a couple of years, but suffered its restoration after- 
ward. 

The creation of municipal offices involved great in- 
direct dangers for the province. This detestable in- 
stitution tended not only to destroy the constitution 
of cities, but to disfigure that of provinces. I am not 
aware whether the deputi^ of the Third Estate in the 
Provincial Assemblies had ever been chosen in view of 
the business they had to perform ; certain it is that for 
a long period of time they had not been so elected. The 
only legitimate representatives of the middle classes 
and the people were the municipal officers of cities. 

So long as the cities chose their magistrates freely 
by universal suffirage, and generally for a short period 



Appendix. 267 

of time, but little inconvenience was occasioned by the 
fact that these deputies had not been specially appoint- 
ed to represent the people, and defend their interest at 
that particular moment. Perhaps the mayor, coun- 
cil, or syndic was as faithful an exponent of the pop- 
ular will as if he had been expressly chosen to repre- 
sent the people in the assembly. But it will at once 
be understood that this ceased to be the case when the 
official had acquired his office for money. In this case 
he represented no one but himself, or, at best, only the 
small interests and petty passions of his coterie. Yet 
the powers of the magistrate by purchase were the 
same as those of the elected magistrate had been. 
Hence a total change in the character of the institu- 
tion. Instead of a firm body of popular representa- 
tives, the nobility and the clergy had to contend in the 
Provincial Assembly with no one but a few isolated, 
timid, and powerless burghers ; the Third Estate be- 
came more and more insignificant in the government 
as it grew more and more powerful in society. This 
was not the case in Languedoc, as the province always 
took care to buy up the offices which the king estab- 
lished from time to time. For this object a loan of 
more than four millions of livres was effected in the 
year 1773 alone. 

Other causes, more potent still, had operated to im- 
bue these old institutions with a modern spirit, and 
imparted to the States of Languedoc an indisputable 
superiority over all others. 

In that province, as in a large portion of the South, 
the taiUe was a tax on the realty, not on the person. 
It was regulated by the value of the property, not the 



268 APPENDIX. 

fortune of the owner. True, certain lands enjoyed a 
privilege of exemption. These lands had formerly all 
belonged to the nobility ; but, in the course of events 
and the progress of industry, part of them had fallen 
into the hands of commoners, while, on the other hand, 
noblemen had in many cases become proprietors of 
lands subject to the taille. The absurdity of privi- 
leges was enhanced, no doubt, by their transfer from 
persons to property ; but their burden was diminished, 
because, inconvenient as they were, they involved no 
humiliation. They were no longer inseparably bound 
up with class ideas; they created no class interests 
hostile to those of the public ; they threw no obstacle 
in the way of a general administration of the public 
business by all classes. Nor was there, in fact, any 
part of France in which all classes mixed so freely, or 
on so decided a footing of equality as in Languedoc. 

In Bretagne, all men of rank were entitled to be 
present in person at the States ; hence these latter bore 
some resemblance to Polish Diets. In Languedoc, the 
nobility was represented in the States by twenty-three 
deputies ; the clergy was represented by twenty-three 
bishops. It is worthy of remark, that the cities had 
as many members as the other two orders combined. 

There was but one assembly, and votes were taken 
by heads, not by orders ; hence the Third Estate nat- 
urally became the preponderating body, and gradual- 
ly imbued the whole assembly with its peculiar spirit. 
The three magistrates, known as syndics-general, who 
were intrusted with the general management of busi- 
ness before the States, were always lawyers, that is to 
say, commoners. The nobility was strong enough to 



APPENDIX. 269 

maintain its rank, but not to rule. The clergy, on the 
other hand, though counting many men of rank among 
its members, always maintained a good understanding 
with the Third Estate. It took an ardent interest in 
many of the schemes proposed by the burghers, labor- 
ed in concert with them to augment the material prop- 
erty of citizens, and extend commerce and industry, 
and often placed at their service its extensive knowl- 
edge of men, and its peculiar skill in the management 
of affairs. It was almost always an ecclesiastic who 
was sent to Versailles to discuss with ministers ques- 
tions that were in dispute between the States and the 
crown. It may be said that during the whole of the 
last century the government of Languedoc was admin- 
istered by burghers, under the control of noblemen, 
and with the aid of bishops. 

Thanks to the peculiar constitution of the province, 
the spirit of the new era penetrated Languedoc easily, 
and made many modifications in its old system with- 
out destroying any thing. 

This might have been the case every where. A por- 
tion of the perseverance and energy that were employ- 
ed by the kings in abolishing or crippling the Provin- 
cial States would have sufficed for their improvement 
and adaptation to the necessities of modern civiliza- 
tion, had those monarchs ever sought any thing beyond 
extending and maintaining their own power. 



NOTES. 



Note a, page 29. 

INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN LAW IN GERMANY. HOW IT HAD 

REPLACED THE GERMANIC LAW. 

At the close of the Middle Ages the Roman law became the 
chief and almost the only study of the German lawyers, most of 
whom, at this time, were educated abroad at the Italian universi- 
ties. These lawyers exercised no political power, but it devolved on 
them to expound and apply the laws. They were unable to abolish 
the Germanic law, but they did their best to distort it so as to fit 
the Roman mould. To every German institution that seemed to 
bear the most distant analogy to Justinian's legislation they applied 
Roman law. Hence a new spirit and new customs gradually in- 
vaded the national legislation, until its original shape was lost, and 
by the seventeenth century it was almost forgotten. Its place had 
been usurped by a medley that was Germanic in name, but Roman 
in fact. 

I have reason to believe that this innovation of the lawyers had 
a tendency to aggravate the condition of more than one class of 
Germans, the peasantry especially. Persons who had up to that 
time succeeded in preserving the whole or a part of their liberty 
or their property, were ingeniously assimilated to the slaves or 
emphyteutic tenants of the Roman law, and lost rights and pos- 
sessions together. 

This gradual transformation of the national law, and the efforts 
which were made to prevent its accomplishment, were plainly 
seen in the history of Wurtemberg. 

From the rise of the county of this name in 1250 to the crea- 
tion of the duchy in 1495, the whole legislation of Wurtemberg 
was indigenous in character. It consisted of customs, local city 
laws, ordinances of seigniorial courts, or statutes of the States. 
Ecclesiastical affairs alone were regulated by foreign, that is to 
say, by canon law. 

But from the year 1495 a cliange took place. Roman law be- 



272 NOTES. 

gan to penetrate the legislation of the duchy. The doctors, as 
they were called — that is to say, the individuals who had studied at 
foreign schools — connected themselves with the government, and 
took the management of the high courts. From the commence- 
ment to the middle of the fifteenth century, a struggle between 
them and the politicians of the day w^as carried on, similar in 
character, though different in result from the struggle that took 
place in England at the very same time. At the Diet of Tubin- 
gen in 1514 and the following Diets, the lawyers were attacked 
violently by the representatives of feudal institutions and the city 
deputies ; they were loudly charged with invading all the courts 
of justice, and altering the spirit or the letter of all the laws and 
customs. At first, victory seemed to rest with the assailants. 
They obtained of government a promise that honorable and en- 
lightened persons, chosen from the nobility and the States of the 
duchy — not doctors — should be set over the higher courts, and 
that a commission, consisting of government agents and represent- 
atives of the States, should be appointed to draft a bill for a Code 
to have force throughout the country. Useless effort ! The Ro- 
man law soon expelled the national law from a large section of the 
legislative sphere, and even planted its roots in the section where 
the latter was allowed to subsist. 

German historians ascribe this triumph of foreign over domestic 
law to two causes : 1st. The attraction exercised over the public 
mind by ancient literature, which necessarily led to a contempt for 
the intellectual products of the national genius ; and, 2dly. The 
idea — with which the Germans of the Middle Ages, and even their 
laws, were imbued — that the Holy Empire was a continuation of 
the Roman Empire, and hence that the legislation of the latter 
was an heirloom of the former. 

These causes do not suffice to explain the simultaneous intro- 
duction of Roman law into every Continental country. I think 
that the singular availability of the Roman law — which was a 
slave-law — for the purposes of monarchs, who were just then es- 
tablishing their absolute power upon the ruins of the old liberties 
of Europe, was the true cause of the phenomenon. 

The Roman law carried civil society to perfection, but it in- 
variably degraded political society, because it was the work of a 
highly civilized and thoroughly enslaved people. Kings naturally 
embraced it with enthusiasm, and established it wherever they 
could throughout Europe ; its interpreters became their ministers 
or their chief agents. Lawyers furnished them at need with legal 



NOTES. 273 

warrant for violating the law. They have often done so since. 
Monarchs who have trampled the laws have almost always found 
a lawyer ready to prove the lawfulness of their acts — to establish 
learnedly that violence was just, and that the oppressed were in 
the wrong. 

Note h, page 3. 

TRANSITION FROM FEUDAL TO DEMOCRATIC MONARCHY. 

As all European monarchies became absolute about the same 
time, it is not probable that the constitutional change was due to 
accidental circumstances which occurred simultaneously in every 
country. The natural supposition is that the general change was 
the fruit of a general cause operating on every country at the same 
moment. 

That general cause was the transition from one social state to 
another, from feudal inequality to democratic equality. The no- 
bility was prostrate ; the people had not yet risen up ; the one was 
too low, the other not high enough to embarrass the movements 
of the supreme power. For a period of a hundred and fifty years 
kings enjoyed a golden age. They were all-powerful, and their 
thrones were stable, advantages usually inconsistent with each 
other. . They were as sacred as the hereditary chiefs of a feudal 
monarchy, and as absolute as the masters of a democracy. 

Note c, page 32. 

DECLINE OF FREE GERMAN CITIES. IMPERIAL CITIES {Reich- 

stadten). 

According to the German historians, these cities reached their 
highest point of prosperity during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies. They were then the refuge of the wealth, of the arts, of 
the learning of Europe, the mistress of commerce, and the centre 
of civilization. They ended, especially in northern and southern 
Germany, by forming, with the surrounding nobility, independent 
confederations, as the Swiss cities had done with the peasantry. 

They were still prosperous in the sixteenth century ; but their 
decline had begun. The Thirty Years' War hastened their down- 
fall ; they were nearly all destroyed or ruined during that period. 

The Treaty of Westphalia, however, made special mention of 
them, and maintained their condition as " immediate states," that 
is to say, communities independent of all control but the emperor. 
But neighboring monarchs on one side, and on the other the em- 

M2 



274 NOTES. 

peror himself, whose power, after the Thirty Years' War, was 
nearly confined in its exercise to these small vassals of the em- 
pire, constantly encroached on their sovereignty. They still num- 
bered fifty-one in the eighteenth century. They occupied two 
benches at the Diet, and had a separate vote. But, practically, 
their influence over the direction of public affairs was gone. 

At home they were overloaded with debts, chiefly arising from 
the fact that they were still taxed in proportion to their past splen- 
dor, and also, in some degree, from their defective administration. 
It is not a little remarkable that this maladministration appeared 
to flow from some secret disease that was common to all of them, 
whatever their constitution happened to be. Aristocratic and 
democratic forms of government provoked equal discontent. Aris- 
tocracies were said to be mere family coteries, in which favor and 
private interest controlled the government. Democracies were 
said to be under the sway of intrigue and corruption. Both forms 
of government were accused of dishonesty and profligacy. The 
Emperor was constantly obliged to interfere in their aff"airs to re- 
store order. Their population was falling off', their wealth van- 
ishing. They were no longer the centres of German civilization ; 
the arts had fled from them to take refuge in new cities created 
by kings, and representing the modern era. Trade had deserted 
them. Their former energy, their patriotic vigor, had disappear- 
ed. Hamburg alone continued to be a great centre of wealth and 
learning ; but this flowed from causes peculiar to itself. 

Note d, page 38. 

DATE OF THE ABOLITION OF SERFDOM IN GERMANY. 

It will be seen from the following table that serfdom has only 
been very recently abolished in the greater part of Germany. 
Serfdom was abolished, 

1. In Baden not till 1783. 

2. In Hohenzollern in 1789. 

3. Schleswig and Holstein in 1804. 

4. Nassau in 1808. 

5. Prussia. Frederick William L abolished serfdom in his do- 
mains in 1717. The code of Frederick the Great, as has been ob- 
served, pretended to abolish it throughout the kingdom, but in 
reality it only abolished its hardest form, leibeigenschaft ; it pre- 
served the milder form, called erbuntertahnigkeit. It did not cease 
entirely till 1809. 



NOTES. 275 

6. In Bavaria serfdom disappeared in 1808. 

7. A decree of Napoleon's, dated Madrid, 1808, abolished it in 
the Grand-duchy of Berg, and in several small territories, such as 
Erfurth, Baireuth, &c. 

8. In the kingdom of Westphalia its destruction dates from 1808 
and 1809. 

9. In the principality of Lippe-Detmold from 1809. 

10. In Schomberg-Lippe from 1810. 

11. In Swedish Pomerania from 1810. 

12. In Hesse-Darmstadt from 1809 and 1811. 

13. In Wurtemberg from 1817. 

14. In Mecklenburg from 1820. 

15. In Oldenburg from 1814. 

16. In Saxony for Lusatia from 1832. 

17. In Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen from 1833 only. 

18. In Austria from 1811. In 1782, Joseph II. had abolished 
the leibeigenschaft ; but serfdom in its mild form — erhuntertah- 
nigkeit — lasted till 1811. 

Note e, page 38. 

A portion of Germany, such as Brandenburg, old Prussia, and 
Silesia, was originally peopled by the Slavic race, and was con- 
quered and partly occupied by Germans. In those countries serf- 
dom was always much harsher than in the rest of Germany, and 
left much plainer traces at the close of the eighteenth century. 

Note f, page 39. 

CODE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. 

Of all the works of Frederick the Great, the least known, even 
in his own country, and the least striking, is the Code drawn up by 
his orders, and promulgated by his successor. Yet I doubt wheth- 
er any of his other works throws as much light on the mind of the 
man or on the times in which he lived, or shows as plainly the 
influence which they exercised one upon the other. 

This Code was a real constitution in the ordinary sense of the 
word. It regulated not only the mutual relations of citizens, but 
also their relations to the state. It was a civil code, a criminal 
code, and a charter all in one. 

It rests, or appears to rest, on a certain number of general prin- 
ciples, expressed in a highly philosophical and abstract form, and 
which bear a strong resemblance in many respects to those which 



276 NOTES. 

are embodied in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in the Con- 
stitution of 1791. 

It proclaims that the welfare of the commonwealth and of its 
inhabitants is the aim of society and the limit of law ; that laws 
can not restrain the freedom and the rights of the citizen save for 
public utility ; that every member of the commonwealth ought to 
labor for the public good in proportion to his position and his 
means; that the. rights of individuals ought to give way to those 
of the public. 

It makes no allusion to any hereditary rights of the sovereign, 
nor to his family, nor even to any particular right as distinguished 
from that of the state. The royal power was already designated 
by no other name than that of the state. 

On the other hand, it alludes to the rights of man, which are 
founded on the natural right of every one to pursue his own hap- 
piness without treading on the rights of others. All acts not for- 
bidden by natural law, or a positive state law, are allowable. Ev- 
ery citizen is entitled to claim the protection of the state for him- 
self and his property, and may defend himself by using force if 
the state does not come to his defense. 

These great principles established, the legislator, instead of 
evolving from them, as the constitution of 1791 did, the doctrine 
of popular sovereignty, and the organization of a democratic gov- 
ernment in a free society, turns sharp round and arrives at another 
conclusion, democratic enough, but not liberal. He considers the 
sovereign the sole representative of the state, and invests him 
with all the rights which he has stated belong to society. The 
sovereign does not figure in the Code as the representative of God ; 
he is the representative, the agent, the servant of society, as Fred- 
erick stated at full length in his works ; but he is its sole repre- 
sentative, he wields its whole authority alone. The head of the 
state, on whom the duty of securing the public welfare — which is 
the sole object of society — devolves, is authorized to direct and 
regulate all the actions of individuals in this view. 

Among the chief duties of this all-powerful agent of society, I 
find such as these mentioned : maintaining order and public safety 
at home, so that every citizen shall be guaranteed against vio- 
lence ; making peace and war ; establishing all laws and police 
regulations ; granting pardons ; annulling criminal prosecutions. 

Every association in the country, and every public establish- 
ment, is subject to his inspection and superintendence in the in- 
terest of the general peace and security. In order that the head 



NOTES. 277 

of the state may be able to perform his duties, he must have cer- 
tain revenues and lucrative rights ; hence he is allowed to tax pri- 
vate fortunes, persons, professions, commerce, industry, articles of 
consumption. Public functionaries acting in his name must be 
obeyed as he is in all matters within the scope of their duties. 

Under this very modern head we shall now see a thoroughly 
Gothic body placed. Frederick has taken away nothing but what 
might impede the action of his own power, and the whole will 
form a monstrous being, which looks like a compromise between 
two creations. In this strange production Frederick evinces as 
much contempt for logic as care for his own power, and anxiety 
not to create useless difficulties in attacking what was still capa- 
ble of defense. 

With the exception of a few districts and certain localities, the 
inhabitants of the rural districts are placed in a state of hereditary 
serfdom ; not only is the land clogged with corvees and inherent 
services, but, as has been seen already, similar burdens attach to 
the persons of the peasants. 

Most of the privileges of landholders are recognized anew by 
the Code — or, it might be said, in contradiction to the Code ; for 
it is expressly stated that, wherever the new legislation clashes 
with local customs, the latter must prevail. It is formally declared 
that the state can not abolish any of these privileges except by pur- 
chase, according to the legal forms. 

True, the Code states that serfdom, properly so called {lei- 
heigenschaft),, is abolished in so far as it interferes with personal 
liberty ; but the hereditary subjection which takes its place {er- 
huntertahnigkeit) is, after all, a species of serfdom, as the text 
shows. 

According to the Code, the burgher remains wholly distinct 
from the peasant. Between the noble and the burgher, an interme- 
diate class, consisting of high functionaries who are not noble, ec- 
clesiastics, professors of learned schools, gymnasia, and universi- 
ties, is placed. 

Superior to the burghers, these personages were not to be con- 
founded with the nobility, to whom they were clearly understood 
to be inferior. They could not purchase equestrian estates, or fill 
the highest posts in the civil service. Nor were they hoffdhig; 
that is to say, they could but rarely appear at court, and never 
with their families. As was the case in France, these distinctions 
became more insulting in proportion to the increasing knowledge 
and influence of this class, which, though excluded from the most 



278 NOTES. 

brilliant posts, filled all those where business of importance was 
transacted. The privileges of the nobility necessarily gave birth 
to irritation, which mainly contributed to cause the revolution 
here, and make it popular in Germany. The principal author of 
the Code was a burgher, but no doubt he merely obeyed the in- 
structions of his master. 

The old constitution of Europe is not in such ruin in this part 
of Germany that Frederick thinks it safe to allow his contempt 
for it to lead him to destroy its relics. Generally speaking, he 
deprives the nobility of the right of assemblage and corporate ac- 
tion ; leaving to each nobleman his privileges, he limits and reg- 
ulates their use. Hence it happens that this Code, drawn up by 
the orders of a disciple of one of our philosophers, and put in force 
after the outbreak of the French Revolution, is the most authentic 
and latest legislative document which gives a legal warrant for 
the feudal inequalities which the Revolution was about to abolish 
throughout Europe. 

The nobility is declared to be the first body in the state. Men 
of rank, it states, are to be preferred to all others for posts of hon- 
or, if they are capable of filling them. None but they are to pos- 
sess noble estates, create substitutions, enjoy rights of chase, jus- 
ticiary rights inherent to noble estates, and rights of presentation 
to clerical livings ; none but they can assume the name of their 
estates. Burghers, specially authorized to acquire noble estates, 
can only enjoy the rights and honors attached to such possessions 
within these limits. A burgher owning a noble estate can not 
leave it to an heir burgher unless he be heir in the first degree. 
When there are no such heirs and no heirs noble, the property 
must be sold at auction. 

One of the most characteristic portions of the Code of Frederick 
the Great is its criminal provision for political offenses. 

Frederick's successor, Frederick William 11. , who, notwith- 
standing the feudal and absolutist provisions above noted, fancied 
he detected revolutionary tendencies in this work of his uncle's, 
and refrained from promulgating it till 1794, was only reconciled 
to it by the excellent penal provisions which served to counteract 
its bad principles. Nor has there ever been any thing since de- 
vised more complete of the kind. Not only are revolts and con- 
spiracies punished with the greatest rigor, but disrespectful criti- 
cisms of government are repressed with equal severity. It is for- 
bidden to purchase or to distribute dangerous writings ; printer, 
publisher, and vender are all responsible for the act of the author. 



NOTES. 279 

Public balls and masquerades are declared to be public meetings, 
which can not take place without the authority of the police. 
Similar rules govern dinners in public places. Liberty of the 
press and of speech are under close and arbitrary supervision. It 
is forbidden to carry fire-arms. 

By the side of this work, which was more than half borrowed 
from the Middle Ages, are provisions whose spirit borders on so- 
cialism. Thus it is declared that it devolves on the state to pro- 
vide food, work, and wages for all who can not support themselves, 
and have no claim for support on the seignior or the commune ; 
they must be provided with work suited to their strength and ca- 
pacity. The state is bound to provide establishments for relieving 
the poor. It is authorized to abolish establishments which tend 
to encourage idleness, and to distribute personally to the poor the 
money by which these establishments were supported. 

Boldness and novelty in point of theory, and timidity in practice 
characterize every portion of this work of Frederick the Great. 
On the one side, that great principle of modern society — that all 
are equally subject to taxes — is loudly proclaimed ; on another, 
provincial laws containing exemptions to this rule are allowed to 
subsist. It is affirmed that all lawsuits between the sovereign 
and the state must be tried in the same forms and according to the 
same rules as all other cases ; but, in fact, this rule was never car- 
ried into effect when the interests or passions of the king were 
opposed to it. The mill of Saint Souci was ostentatiously shown 
to the people, and justice was quietly made subject to royal con- 
venience in other cases. 

What proves that this Code, which assumed to be such a nov- 
elty, really made but few changes, and is therefore a curious study 
of German society in this section of country at the close of the 
eighteenth century, is that the Prussian nation hardly noticed its 
publication. Lawyers were the only persons who studied it ; and 
even in our time there are many enlightened men who have never 
read it. 

Note g, page 4L 

PROPERTY. OF THE GERMAN PEASANTS. 

Many families among the peasantry were not only free and land- 
holders, their property constituted a species of perpetual majorat. 
Their estate was indivisible, and passed by descent to one of the 
sons — usually the youngest — as was the case in some English cus- 
toms. He was expected to endow his brothers and sisters. 



280 ' NOTES. 

The erhgiltter of the peasantry were spread more or less over 
the whole of Germany, for the land was nowhere absorbed by the 
feudal tenures. Even in Silesia, where the nobility owned im- 
mense estates comprising most of the villages, other villages were 
possessed by the inhabitants, and were wholly free. In certain 
parts of Germany, such as the Tyrol and Frise, the rule was that 
the peasantry owned the land by erhgutter. 

But in the greater part of the German countries this kind of 
property was an exception sometimes rarely met with. In the 
villages where it occurred, landholders of this kind constituted a 
sort of aristocracy among the peasantry. 

' Note h, page 41. 

POSITION OF THE NOBILITY AND DIVISION OF LAND ALONG THE 
RHINE. 

From information obtained on the spot, and from persons who 
lived under the old regime, it appears that in the Electorate of 
Cologne, for instance, there were a great number of villages with- 
out seigniors, and governed by agents of the king ; that in the 
places where the nobility lived, their administrative powers were 
very limited ; that their position (individually at all events) was 
rather brilliant than powerful ; that they possessed honors and of- 
fices, but no direct control over the people. I also ascertained that 
in the same electorate property was much divided, and that many 
of the peasants owned the land they occupied. The fact was 
ascribed to the poverty that had long oppressed many of the noble 
families, and obliged them to sell their estates to the peasants for 
an annual rent or a sum of money. I have had in my hands a 
schedule of the population and estates within the Bishopric of Co- 
logne at the beginning of the eighteenth century : it indicated that, 
at that time, one third of the soil belonged to the peasantry. From 
this fact arose sentiments and ideas which predisposed these peo- 
ple to a far greater extent than the inhabitants of other parts of 
Germany to welcome a revolution. 

Note i, page 42. 

HOW THE USURY LAWS FAVORED SUBDIVISION OF LAND. 

At the close of the eighteenth century it was still illegal to lend 
money on interest, whatever was the rate charged. Turgot says 
that this law was observed in many places as late as 1769. These 



NOTES. 281 

laws are still in force, says he, but they are often violated. Con- 
sular judges allow interest on loans, while the ordinary courts con- 
demn the practice. Dishonest debtors still prosecute their credit- 
ors criminally for having lent money without alienating the capital. 
Independently of the effects which such laws as these must have 
had on commerce, industry, and the morals of business men, they 
affected the division and tenure of lands to a very great extent. 
They caused an immense increase of perpetual rents, as well 
ground-rents (foncieres) as others. They compelled the old land- 
owners, instead of borrowing in times of need, to sell small por- 
tions of their domains, partly for a given sum, partly for a rent ; 
hence leading, first, to the infinite subdivision of estates, and, sec- 
ondly, to the creation of a multitude of perpetual rents on their 
little properties. 

Note k, page 46. 

EXAMPLE OF THE IRRITATION CAUSED BY TITHES TEN YEARS 
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 

In 1779, a petty lawyer of Luce complains in a bitter and revo- 
lutionary tone that curates and other large titheholders are selling 
at exorbitant prices to farmers the straw which has been paid 
them by way of tithes, and which the farmers absolutely need for 
manure. 

Note 1, page 46. 

EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PRIVILEGES OF THE 
CLERGY ALIENATED THE AFFECTION OF THE PEOPLE FROM 
THEM. 

In 1780, the prior and canons of the Priory of Laval complain 
of being made to pay duty on articles of consumption, and on the 
materials required for the repair of their buildings. They argue 
that the duty is an accessory of the taille, and that, being exempt 
from the one, they ought not to be liable for the other. The minis- 
ter tells them to apply to the election, with recourse to the Court 
of Aides. 

Note m, page 46. 

FEUDAL RIGHTS EXERCISED BY PRIESTS. — ONE EXAMPLE OUT OF 
A THOUSAND. 

The Abbey of Cherbourg, in 1753, possessed seigniorial rents, 
payable in money or produce, in almost all the villages in the 



282 NOTES. 

neighborhood of Cherbourg : one village alone paid 306 bushels 
of wheat. It owned the barony of Sainte Genevieve, the barony 
and seignioriar mill of Bas du Roule, and the barony of Neuville 
au Plein, at least ten leagues distant. It received, moreover, 
tithes from twelve parishes on the peninsula, some of which were 
at a great distance from the abbey. 

Note n, page 49. 

IRRITATION AMONG THE PEASANTRY PROCEEDING FROM THE 
FEUDAL RIGHTS, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF THE CHURCH. 

Letter written shortly before the Revolution by a peasant to the 
intendant. It is no authority for the facts it states, but it indi- 
cates admirably the state of feeling in the class to which the writer 
belonged : 

"Though we have but few nobles in this part of the country," 
it says, " it must not be supposed that real estate is free from rents ; 
on the contrary, nearly all the fiefs belong to the Cathedral, or the 
archbishopric, or the collegiate church of Saint Martin, or the" 
Benedictines of Noirmontiers, of Saint Julien, or some other ec- 
clesiastics, against whom no prescription runs, and who are con- 
stantly bringing to light old musty parchments whose date God 
only knows ! 

" The whole country is infected with rents. Most of the farm- 
lands pay every year a seventh of a bushel of wheat per acre, 
others wine ; one pays the seignior a fourth of all fruits, another 
a fifth, another a twelfth, another a thirteenth — the tithes being 
always paid on the gross. These rights are so singular that they 
vary from a fourth part of the produce to a fortieth. 

" What must be thought of these rents in kind — in vegetables, 
money, poultry, labor, wood, fruit, candles ? I am acquainted with 
rents which are paid in bread, in wax, in eggs, in headless pigs, 
in rose shoulder-knots, in bouquets of violets, in golden spurs, &c. ; 
and there are a host of seigniorial dues besides these. Why has 
France not been freed from all these extravagant rents 1 Men's 
eyes are at last being opened ; one may hope every thing from 
the wisdom of the present government. It will stretch a kindly 
hand to the poor victims of the exactions of the old fiscal system, 
called seigniorial rights, which could not be alienated or sold. 

" What must be thought of this tyranny of mutation fines 1 A 
purchaser exhausts his means in acquiring a property, and is 
obliged to pay besides in expenses to secure his title, contracts. 



NOTES. 283 

actual entry, proces-veriaux, stamp, registry, centieme denier, 
eight sous per livre ; after which he must exhibit his title to his 
seignior, who will exact the mutation fine on the gross price of 
his purchase, now a twelfth, and now a tenth. Some claim a fifth, 
others a fifth and a twenty-fifth besides. All rates are demanded ; 
I know some who charge a third of the price paid. No, the most 
ferocious and the most barbarous nations of the known world have 
never invented such or so many exactions as our tyrants heaped 
on the heads of our forefathers." (This literary and philosophical 
tirade is sadly defective in orthography.) 

" What ! the late king permitted the commutation of ground- 
rents on city property, but excluded those on farms ! He should 
have begun with the latter. Why not permit poor farmers to 
break their chains, to pay off and get rid of the hosts of seigniorial 
dues and ground-rents, v/hich are such an injury to the vassal and 
so small a gain to the seignior ? No distinction should have been 
made between city and country, seigniors and private individuals. 

" The stewards of the owners of ecclesiastical estates rob and 
plunder the farmers at every mutation. We have seen a recent 
example of the practice. The steward of our new archbishop 
gave notice to quit to all the farmers holding under leases from M. 
de Fleury, his predecessor, declared all their leases null and void, 
and turned out every man who refused to submit to his rent being 
doubled, and to pay a large bonus besides, though they had already 
paid a bonus to M. de Fleury's steward. They have thus been 
deprived of seven or eight years' holding, though their leases were 
executed in due form, and have been driven out upon the world on 
Christmas eve, the most critical period of the year, owing to the 
difficulty of feeding cattle. The King of Prussia could have done 
nothing worse." 

It appears, in fact, that, with regard to Church property, leases 
granted by one titulary did not bind his successor. The writer of 
the letter states what is true when he says that feudal rents were 
redeemable in cities, but not in the country ; a new proof of the 
neglect in which the peasantry lived, and of the manner in which 
all who were placed above them contrived to provide for their 
own interest. 

Note o, page 49. 
Every institution that has long been dominant, after establishing 
itself in its natural sphere, extends itself, and ends by exercising 
a large influence over those branches of legislation which it does 



284 NOTES. 

not govern. The feudal system, though essentially political, had 
transformed the civil law, and greatly modified the condition of 
persons and property in all the relations of private life. It had 
operated upon successions by creating unequal divisions of prop- 
erty — a principle carried out in certain provinces even among the 
middle classes (as witness Normandy). It had affected all real 
estate, for there were but few tracts of land that were wholly freed 
from its effects, or whose possessors felt none of the consequences 
of its laws. It affected the property of communes as well as that 
of individuals. It affected labor by the impositions it laid upon it. 
It affected incomes by the inequality of taxation, and, in general, 
the pecuniary interest of every man in every business : landown- 
ers, by dues, rents, corvees ; farmers in a thousand ways, among 
others by rights of banality, ground-rents, mutation-fines, &c. ; 
traders, by market-dues ; merchants, by tolls, &c. In striking it 
down, the Revolution made itself perceived and felt at the same 
time at all points by every private interest. 

Note p, page 59. 

PUBLIC CHARITIES GRANTED BY THE STATE. FAVORITISM. 

In 1748 — a year of great famine and misery, such as often oc- 
curred in the eighteenth century — the king granted 20,000 pounds 
of rice. The Archbishop of Tours claimed that he alone had ob- 
tained the gift, and that it ought to be distributed by him alone, 
and in his diocese. The intendant argued that the gift was made 
to the whole province, and should be distributed by him to all the 
parishes. After a long contest, the king, to settle the quarrel, 
doubled the quantity of rice given to the province, so that the arch- 
bishop and the intendant miglit each distribute half. Both agreed 
that it ought to be distributed by the curates. No one thought of 
the seigniors or the syndics. It appears from the correspondence 
between the intendant and the comptroller-general that the former 
accused the archbishop of wishing to give the rice to his favorites, 
and especially to the parishes which belonged to the Duchess of 
Rochechouart. The collection also contains letters from noblemen 
which demand aid for their parishes in particular, and letters from 
the comptroller-general which make reference to the parishes of 
certain individuals. 

Public charities are always liable to abuses under every sys- 
tem ; but when distributed from a distance, without publicity, by 
the central government, they are actually futile. 



NOTES. 285 

Note q, page 59. 

EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THESE PUBLIC CHARITIES 
WERE DISTRIBUTED. 

A report, made in 1780 to the Provincial Assembly of Upper 
Guienne, states, " Out of the sum of 385,000 livres which his maj- 
esty has granted to this province from the year 1773, when work- 
houses were established, to the year 1779 inclusive, the election 
of Montauban, capital and place of residence of the intendant, has 
alone had more than 240,000 livres, most of which has been spent 
in the commune of Montauban." 

Note r, page 60. 

POWERS OF THE INTENDANT FOR THE REGULATION OF MANUFAC- 
TURES. 

The archives of the intendants' offices are full of papers which 
refer to the regulation of industrial enterprises by the intendants. 

Not only is labor subject to the inconvenience of trade-compa- 
nies, guilds, &c., it is liable to be affected by every whim of gov- 
ernment, that is to say, of the Council in great matters, of the in- 
tendants in small ones. The latter are constantly giving directions 
about the length of woofs, the kind of thread to use, the pattern to 
prefer, errors to avoid. Independently of the sub-delegates, they 
have local inspectors of manufactures under their orders. In this 
particular centralization had gone farther than it now does ; it was 
more capricious, more arbitrary ; it created a swarm of public 
functionaries, and gave rise to general habits of submission and 
dependence. 

Note also that these habits were imparted to the middle classes, 
merchants, and traders, which were about to triumph, to a far 
greater extent than to the classes that were on the point of defeat. 
Hence, instead of destroying, the Revolution tended to confirm 
and spread them. 

The preceding remarks have been suggested by the perusal of 
a quantity of correspondence and documents taken from the in- 
tendant's office of the He de France, and indorsed, " Manufactures 
and Fabrics," " Drapery," " Drugs." I have found in the same 
place reports from the inspectors to the intendant giving full and 
detailed accounts of their visits of inspection to factories ; more- 
over, various Orders in Council, passed on reports of the intend- 
ant, prohibiting or permitting manufactures of certain stuffs, or in 
certain places, or in certain methods. 



2^6 NOTES. 

The dominant idea in the intercourse of these inspectors with 
the manufacturer — who, by the way, is treated very cavalierly — 
seems to be that their duty and the rights of the state compel them 
to see that the manufacturer not only acts fairly toward the public, 
but looks after his own interest. They consequently feel bound to 
make him adopt the best methods, and admonish him on the most 
trifling details of his business, larding the whole with a profusion 
of penalties and heavy fines. 

Note B, page 61. 

SPIRIT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF LOUIS XI. 

Nothing indicates more clearly the spirit of the government of 
Louis XL than the constitutions he gave to cities. I have had oc- 
casion to study very closely those which he gave to most of the 
cities of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. 

All these constitutions are framed on the same plan, and all re- 
veal the same designs. Louis XL appears in a new light in these 
charters. He is generally regarded as the enemy of the nobility, 
but the sincere though somewhat brutal friend of the people. They 
reveal him as a hater alike of the political rights of the people and 
of those of the nobility. He uses the middle classes to lower the 
nobility and keep down the people : he is both anti-aristocratic and 
anti-democratic — the model of the burgher king. He loads city 
notables with privileges in the view of increasing their importance, 
grants them titles of nobility in order to cheapen rank, and thus 
destroys the popular and democratic city governments, and places 
the whole authority in the hands of a few" families, attached to his 
policy, and pledged to his support by every tie of gratitude. 

Note t, p. 62. 

A CITY GOVERNMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

I select from the Inquiry into City Governments, made in 1764, 
the papers which relate to Angers ; they contain an analysis, at- 
tacks upon, and defenses of the constitution of this city, emanating 
from the presidial, the city corporation, the sub-delegate, and the 
intendant. As the same facts occurred in many other places, the 
picture must not be regarded as a solitary example. 



NOTES. 287 



MEMORIAL OF THE PRESIDIAL ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE 
MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTION OF ANGERS, AND ON THE REFORMS 
THAT IT NEEDS. 

" The Corporation of Angers never consults the people at large 
even on the most important occasions, unless it is compelled to do 
so ; hence its policy is unknown to every one but its own mem- 
bers. Even the movable aldermen have only a superficial ac- 
quaintance with its mode of proceeding." 

(The tendency of all these little burgher oligarchies was, in 
truth, to consult the people at large as little as possible.) 

The corporation is composed of twenty-one officers, in virtue of 
a decree of 29th March, 1681, to wit : 

A mayor, who becomes noble ex officio, and whose term is four 
years ; 

Four movable aldermen, who hold office for two years ; 

Twelve consulting aldermen, who are elected and hold office for 
life ; 

Two city counsel ; 

One counsel holding the reversion of the office ; 

A clerk. 

They enjoy many privileges : among others, their capitation-tax 
is fixed at a moderate sum ; they are exempt from lodging sol- 
diers, arms, or baggage ; they are exempt from dues de cloison 
double et triple, from the old and new excise, from the accessory 
dues on articles of consumption, even from benevolences, " from 
which latter they have asserted their own freedom," says the pre- 
sidial. They enjoy, moreover, allowances in the shape of lights, 
and in some cases salaries and lodgings. 

We see from this that a post of perpetual alderman at Angers 
was not to be despised in those days. Note here, as every where 
else, the contrivances to secure exemptions from taxes for the rich. 
The memorial goes on to say that " these offices are eagerly sought 
by the richest citizens, who desire them in order to reduce their 
capitation-tax, and increase that of their fellow-citizens in propor- 
tion. There are at this moment several municipal officers who 
pay 30 livres of capitation, and ought to pay 250 to 300 livres ; 
one, among others, ought, in proportion to his fortune, to pay 1000 
livres at least." In another part of the memorial it is said that 
among the richest inhabitants of the place are more than forty of- 
ficers, or widows of officers (office-holders), whose rank exempts 
them from the heavy capitation-tax paid by the city. The tax con- 



288 NOTES. 

sequently falls upon an infinite number of poor mechanics, who, be- 
lieving themselves overtaxed, constantly complain of the amount 
of their tax — unjustly so, for there are no inequalities in the divi- 
sion of the burden laid upon the city. 

The General Assembly is composed of seventy-six persons : 

The mayor ; 

Two deputies of the chapter ; 

A syndic of the clerks ; 

Two deputies of the presidial ; 

A deputy of the university ; 

A lieutenant-general of police ; 

Four aldermen ; 

Twelve consulting aldermen ; 

A king's attorney near the presidial ; 

A city counsel ; 

Two deputies of the woods and forests ; 

Two of the election ; 

Two of the salt warehouse ; 

Two of the traites ; 

Two of the mint ; 

Two of the advocates and attorneys ; 

Two of the consular judges ; 

Two of the notaries ; 

Two of the shop-keepers ; 

And, lastly, two deputies from each of the sixteen parishes. 

These latter are understood to be the special representatives of 
the people ; they are, in fact, the representatives of industrial cor- 
porations, and the council is so arranged, as the reader has seen, 
that they are sure to be in a minority. 

When posts in the corporation become vacant, the General As- 
sembly chooses three candidates for each vacancy. 

Most of the posts in the city government are free to persons of 
all professions ; the Assembly is not — as others which I have no- 
ticed — obliged to choose a magistrate or a lawyer to fill a vacancy. 
To this the presidial objects strongly. 

According to the same presidial, which seems terribly jealous 
of the city corporation, and whose main objection to the constitu- 
tion was, Isuspect, that it did not confer privileges enough on the 
presidial, "the General Assembly is too numerous, and composed 
of persons too devoid of intelligence to be consulted on any mat- 
ters but sales of the city property, the negotiation of loans, the 
establishment of town dues, and the election of municipal ofldcers. 



NOTES. 2b9 

An other business should be transacted by a smaller body, wholly 
composed of notables. No one should be a member of this assem- 
bly but the lieutenant-general of the senechaussee, the king's attor- 
ney, and twelve other notables chosen out of the six bodies, the 
clergy, the magistracy, the nobility, the university, the merchants, 
and the burghers, and others who do not belong to any of these six 
classes. The first choice of notables should be made by the As- 
sembly, and future elections by the assembly of notables or the 
body from which each notable is chosen." 

A resemblance existed between these public functionaries, who 
thus become members of municipal bodies as office-holders or no- 
tables, and the functionaries of the same title and character in our 
day. But their position was very different from that of modern 
office-holders — a fact which can not be safely overlooked; for 
nearly all these old functioaaries were city notables before they 
obtained office, or only sought office in order to become notables. 
They had no notion of either resigning their rank or being pro- 
moted ; this alone creates a vast difference between them and 
their successors in office. 

MEMORIAL OF THE MUNICIPAL OFFICERS. 

This document shows that the city corporation was created in 
1474 by Louis XI. upon the ruins of the old democratic constitu- 
tion of the city, and that its principle was of the nature explained 
above ; that is to say, nearly all political power was vested in the 
middle classes ; the people were kept at a distance, or weakened ; 
a vast number of municipal officers were created in order to mus- 
ter partisans for the scheme ; hereditary titles of nobility were 
granted in profusion, and all sorts of privileges were secured to 
the burgher administrators. 

The same paper also contains letters patent from successors of 
Louis XL, which recognize this new constitution and curtail still 
further the power of the people. It mentions that in 1485 the 
letters patent granted with this view by Charles VIIL were as- 
sailed by the people of Angers before the Parliament, just as, in 
England, disputes relative to the charter of a city would have been 
carried before the courts. In 1601 a decree of Parliament again 
fixed the political rights which were authorized by the royal char- 
ter. From thenceforth, no other controlling authority appears but 
the Royal Council. 

It appears from the same memorial that mayors, like all other 
city officers, were selected by the king out of a list of three names 

N 



290 NOTES. 

presented by the General Assembly ; this was in virtue of an Or- 
der in Council of 22d June, 1708. It also appears that, in virtue 
of Orders in Council of 1733 and 1741, the small traders were en- 
titled to one alderman (perpetual) or councilor. Finally, the me- 
morial shows that at that time the corporation was intrusted with 
the distribution of the tax levied for the capitation, equipment, 
lodgings, provisions of the poor, of the troops, of the revenue serv- 
ice, of foundlings. 

Then follows an enumeration of the great labors which devolve 
upon municipal officers. They fully justify, in the opinion of the 
memorialists, the privileges and the permanent rank which they 
enjoy, and which, it is plain, they are much afraid of losing. Many 
of the reasons which they assign for the severity of their office- 
labors are curious, such as the following : " Their financial duties 
have been much increased by the extepsions which are constantly 
being made to the aid dues, the gabel, the stamp and registry 
dues, and the unlawful exactions of registry dues and freehold 
duties. They have been involved, on the city's behalf, in perpet- 
ual lawsuits with the financial companies in reference to these tax- 
es ; they have had to go from court to court, from the Parliament 
to the Council, in order to resist the oppression under which they 
are groaning. An experience and a public service of thirty years 
enable them to state that the life of man is hardly long enough to 
defend one's self against the stratagems and the traps which the 
agents of the revenue-farmers are constantly laying for the citizen, 
in order to preserve their commissions." 

Curiously enough, it is to the comptroller-general that these 
things are said, and said with the view of winning his support for 
the privileges of the class that expresses these views. So deeply 
rooted was the habit of viewing the companies which farmed the 
taxes as an adversary that might be abused on all sides without 
objection from any one. This habit steadily spread and gained 
strength ; men learned to view the treasury as an odious tyrant, 
hateful to all : the common enemy instead of the common agent. 

" All offices were first united with the corporation," adds the 
same memorial, " by an Order in Council of the 4th September, 
1694, in consideration of a sum of 22,000 livres ;" that is to say, 
the offices were redeemed that year for that sum. By an order 
of 26th April, 1723, the offices created by the edict of 24th May, 
1722, were also united to the corporation, or, in other words, the 
city was permitted to redeem them. By another order of 24th 
May, 1723, the city was authorized to borrow 120,000 livres for 



NOTES. 291 

the acquisition of the said offices. Another, of 26th July, 1728, 
authorized it to borrow 50,000 livres to redeem the office of clerk- 
secretary of the City Hall. " The city," says the memorial, " has 
paid its money to preserve the freedom of its elections, and to se- 
cure to the officers it elects for one or two years, or for life, the var- 
ious prerogatives attached to their offices." Some of the munici- 
pal offices were re-established by the edict of November, 1733 ; an 
order was subsequently obtained at the instance of the mayor and 
aldermen, allowing the city to purchase an extension of its rights, 
for a term of fifteen years, for a sum of 170,000 livres. 

This is a fair criterion of the policy of the government of the 
old regime, as regards cities. It compelled them to contract debts, 
then authorized them to establish extraordinary taxes to liquidate 
them. And to this it must be added that afterward many of these 
taxes, which were naturally temporary, were made perpetual, and 
then the government got its share. 

The memorial continues : " The municipal officers were never 
deprived of their judicial functions till the establishment of royal 
courts. Until 1669, they had sole cognizance of disputes between 
masters and servants. The accounts of the town dues are render- 
ed before the intendant, in obedience to the decrees establishing 
or continuing the said dues." 

The memorial makes it plain that the representatives of the six- 
teen parishes, who, as above mentioned, had seats in the General 
Assembly, were chosen by companies, corporate bodies, or com- 
munities, and were the mere organs of these bodies. They were 
bound by their instructions on all points. 

In fine, this memorial shows that, at Angers as elsewhere, no 
expenses could be incurred by the city without the concurrence 
of the intendant and the Council. And it must be acknowledged 
that, when the government of a city is intrusted to certain men to 
be used as their private property, and when these men receive no 
salary, but enjoy in lieu thereof privileges which exonerate them 
firom all responsibility to their fellow-citizens for maladministra- 
tion, the guardianship of the state may seem a necessity. 

The whole of this memorial, which is clumsily drawn up, indi- 
cates a state of great alarm on the part of these officials lest the 
existing state of things should be changed. All kinds of reasons, 
good and bad, are accumulated together, and pressed into the 
service of the statu quo. 



292 NOTES. 



MEMORIAL OF THE SUB-DELEGATE. 

The intendant, having received these two contradictory memo- 
rials, asks for the opinion of his sub-delegate. He gives it : 

" The memorial of the municipal councilors," says he, " does not 
deserve attention ; its only aim is to subserve their ovi^n privileges. 
That of the presidial may be beneficially consulted, but there is 
no reason for granting them all the prerogatives they desire." 

He admits that the constitution of the civic body has long need- 
ed reform. Besides the immunities already mentioned, which 
were enjoyed by all the municipal officers of Angers, he states 
that the mayor, during his term of service, was lodged at a cost of 
at least 600 francs ; that he received 50 francs salary, and 100 
francs for expenses of his office, besides the jetons. The attorney- 
syndic was also lodged, and so was the clerk. In order to escape 
aid and town dues, the municipal officers had fixed upon a pre- 
sumed amount of consumption by each of them ; and by account- 
ing for this, they could introduce into the city as many casks of 
wine or other merchandise as they pleased. 

The sub-delegate does not propose to deprive the councilors of 
their exemption from taxes ; but he thinks their capitation -tax, 
which is now fixed at a very low figure, should be settled every 
year by the intendant. He also advises that these officials should 
be made to contribute with every one else to the don gratuit, their 
exemption from which is without authority or precedent. 

The municipal officers, says the memorial, are intrusted with 
the preparation of the capitation-rolls for the people. They per- 
form this duty carelessly and arbitrarily, whence the intendant is 
regularly overwhelmed every year with petitions and reclama- 
tions. It would be desirable that this tax should be distributed 
hereafter, in the interest of each community or company, by its 
members, in a general and stable manner ; and that municipal of- 
ficers should in future fix the capitation of burghers only, and of 
persons belonging to no public body, such as certain workmen and 
the servants of privileged persons. 

The memorial of the sub-delegate confirms what the municipal 
officers have already stated in regard to the redemption, in 1735, 
of the municipal offices, for the sum of 170,000 livres. 

LETTER FROM THE INTENDANT TO THE COMPTROLLER-GENERAL. 

Armed with these various documents, the intendant writes to 
the minister : " The public interest and that of the citizens," he 



NOTES. 293 

says, " require a reduction in the number of municipal officers, 
whose privileges have become a heavy burden on the public." 

" I am struck," he adds, " with, the enormous amount of money 
that has been repeatedly paid for the redemption of municipal of- 
fices at Angers. A similar sum, employed usefully, would have 
done the city much good ; as it is, it has only made people feel the 
weight of the authority and of the privileges of these officials. 

" The internal abuses of this government fully deserve the at- 
tention of the Council. Independently of jetons and candle, which 
consume the annual appropriation of 2127 livres (this was the sum 
set apart for this class of expenditures in the normal budget, which 
was occasionally imposed on cities by the king), the public money 
is squandered and employed for clandestine purposes by these of- 
ficers. The king's attorney, who has held his office for thirty or 
forty years, has obtained such a mastery over the administration, 
of which he alone understands the details, that the citizens have 
been unable to obtain the least information with regard to the em- 
ployment of their money." In consequence, the intendant pro- 
poses to the minister to reduce the corporation to a mayor serv- 
ing for four years, six aldermen serving for six years, one king's 
attorney serving for eight, and a perpetual clerk and receiver. 

In other respects the Constitution which he proposes for Angers 
is precisely the same as the one he elsewhere proposed for Tours. 
In his opinion, 

1st. The government should preserve the General Assembly, 
but merely as an electoral body for the election of municipal officers. 

2d. It should create an extraordinary Council of Notables, whose 
functions should be those with which the edict of 1764 appeared 
to invest the General Assembly. This council to be composed 
of twelve persons, holding office for six years, and elected, not by 
the General Assembly, but by the twelve bodies esteemed notable, 
each body electing one. He designates as notable bodies, 

The presidial. 

The university. 

The election. 

The office of woods and forests, 

The salt warehouse. 

The office of the traites, 

The mint. 

The advocates and attorneys, 

The consular judges, 

The notaries, 



294 NOTES. 

The traders (marchands). 

The burghers (bourgeois). 

As will be remarked, nearly all these notables were public func- 
tionaries, and all the public functionaries were notables. From 
this, as from a thousand other papers in these collections, it may 
be inferred that the middle classes were then as great place-hunt- 
ers and as destitute of independent ambition as they are now. 
The only difference is, as I remarked in the text, that formerly 
the petty importance afforded by these places was bought, whereas 
now candidates beg the government to grant them the charity of 
a place for nothing. 

It is here seen that the whole real power in the municipality 
is vested in the extraordinary council, and the administration of 
the city is thus further confined to a small circle of burghers. The 
only assembly in which the people continue to exercise the least 
interference is now confined to the electing of municipal officers 
whom it can not instruct. It is to be remarked, also, that the in- 
tendant is more unbending and antipopular in his principles than 
the king, who seemed in his edict to have transferred most of the 
public authority to the General Assembly, and again, that the in- 
tendant is far more liberal and democratic than the burghers. This 
last inference is at all events a fair one from the memorial I have 
quoted in the text, from which it appears that the notables of an- 
other city were desirous of excluding the people from the election 
of municipal officers in opposition to the views of the intendant 
and the king. 

It may be noticed that the intendant recognizes two distinct 
classes of notables under the names of bourgeois and marchands. 
It may not be useless to give an exact definition of these words, in 
order to show into how many small fragments the bourgeoisie was 
divided, and by how many petty vanities it was actuated. 

The word bourgeois had a general and also a particular mean- 
ing; it meant the members of the middle classes at large, and it 
also meant a certain number of men within those classes. "5owr- 
geois^'' says a memorial filed at the inquiry of 1764, " are indi- 
viduals whose birth and fortune enable them to live without en- 
gaging in lucrative pursuits." Other portions of the memorial 
show that the word bourgeois does not apply to persons who be- 
long to companies or industrial corporations ; it is not so easy to 
say to whom it does apply. " For," as the same memorial says, 
" many persons assume the title of bourgeois whose only claim to 
it is their idleness, who have no fortune, and lead a rude, obscure 



NOTES. 295 

life. Bourgeois should, on the contrary, always be distinguished 
by their fortune, their birth, their talents, manners, and mode of 
life. Mechanics composing trade-companies have never been 
classed in the rank of notables."* 

Traders Qmarchands) were another class of individuals who, 
like the bourgeois, belonged to no company or corporation : but 
where were the limits of this little class ? " Must we," says the 
same memorial, " confound small, low-born dealers with wholesale 
merchants V To overcome the difficulty, the memorial proposes 
to have the aldermen draw up every year a table of notable traders 
(marchands), to be handed to their chief or syndic, who shall in- 
vite to the deliberations at the city hall none but those who are 
thereon inscribed. Care will be taken to inscribe on this table no 
traders who may have been domestics, porters, wagoners, or fol- 
lowers of other low trades. 

Note u, page 66. 
One of the most striking features of the administration of cities 
in the eighteenth century is, not the absence of all representation 
and intervention of the public in city business, but the extreme 
variability of the rules governing such administration. Civic 
rights were constantly bestow^ed, taken away, restored, increased, 
diminished, modified in a thousand ways, and unceasingly. No 
better indication of the contempt into which all local liberties had 
fallen can be found than these eternal changes of laws which no 
€ne seemed to notice. This mobility would alone have sufficed to 
destroy all initiative or recuperative energy, and all local patriot- 
ism in the institution which is best adapted to it. It helped to 
prepare the great work of destruction which was to be effected by 
•the Revolution. 

Note V, page 67, 

A VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (tAKEN 
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE INTENDANt's OFFICE IN THE ILE DE 

France), 

The affair which I am about to relate is one instance out of a 
thousand which illustrates the forms and the dilatory methods 
used by parochial governments, and shows what a general paro- 
chial assembly reaJly was in the eighteenth century. 

* In the text the words bourgeois and bourgeoisie are translated " burghers" 
or "the middle classes," according to the context. The exact meaning of the 
French wo d is often doubtful, and the search for an exact English equivalent 
almost always hopeless. — Teans. 



296 NOTES. 

The parsonage-house and steeple of a rural parish — that of Ivry, 
He de France — required repair. To whom was application to be 
made to make the repairs 1 Who was to pay for them 1 How 
was the money to be procured '? 

1st. Petition from the curate to the intendant, setting forth that 
the parsonage-house and steeple need immediate repairs ; that his 
predecessor had caused useless buildings to be erected adjoining 
the parsonage-house, and had thus altered and deformed the char- 
acter of the spot ; and that the inhabitants, having permitted him 
to do this, ought to bear the expense of all needful repairs, having 
their recourse on the late curate's heirs for the expense. 

2d. Ordinance of monseigneur the intendant (29th August, 
1747), ordering the syndic diligently to convene an assembly to 
deliberate on the necessity of the repairs. 

3d. Deliberation of the inhabitants, by which they declare that 
they do not object to the parsonage-house being repaired, but as 
for the steeple, they hold that, as it is built on the choir, which the 
curate, as a large tithe-holder, is bound to repair, he must pay for 
any repairs it may need. [An Order in Council of April, 1695, 
had, in fact, imposed the duty of keeping the choir in repair upon 
the tithe-holder, leaving the tithe-payers to look after the nave.] 

4th. New ordinance of the intendant, which, in view of the con- 
flict of statements, orders an architect, the Steur Cordier, to visit 
and examine the parsonage-house and steeple, hear evidence, and 
make estimates of the works. 

5th. Authentic report of all these proceedings, testifying that a 
certain number of landholders of Ivry, apparently men of rank, 
burghers, and peasants, appeared before the intendant's commis- 
sioner, and gave evidence for or against the pretensions of the 
curate. 

6th. New ordinance of the intendant, directing that the esti- 
mates prepared by his architect be laid before the landholders 
and inhabitants in a general assembly convoked with due diligence 
by the syndic for the purpose. 

7th. New parochial assembly in pursuance of the ordinance, in 
which the people declare that they adhere to their expressed opin- 
ions. 

8th. Ordinance of the intendant, directing, first, that in presence 
of his sub-delegate at Corbeil, the curate, syndic, and principal in- 
habitants of the parish being also present, the contracts for the 
work according to the estimates shall be given out ; and, secondly, 
that, whereas the want of repairs involves absolute danger, the 



NOTES. 297 

whole cost shall be levied upon the inhabitants, without prejudice 
to the legal rights of those who conceive that the cost of repairing 
the steeple should be borne by the curate as tithe-holder. 

9th. Notice to all parties to be present at the office of the sub- 
delegate at Corbeil, where the contracts are to be given out. 

10th. Petition of the curate and several inhabitants, praying that 
the costs of the preliminary proceedings be not charged, as usual, 
against the contractor, lest they should deter bidders from coming 
forward. 

11th. Ordinance of the intendant, directing that all expenses in- 
curred in order to bring the aifair to issue be settled by the sub- 
delegate, added to the contract, and included in the imposition. 

12th. Authority from several notables of the parish to the Sieur 
X. to be present on their behalf at the execution of the contract, 
and confirm it according to the architect's estimates. 

13th. Certificate of the syndic, stating that the usual notices and 
advertisements have been made. 

14th. Official report of the contract : 

Expenses of repairs , 487?. 

Legal expenses pertaining thereto 237Z. 18^. 6d. 

724 18 6~ 

15th. Lastly, Order in Council (23d July, 1748), authorizing an 
impost to raise this sum. 

It may have been noticed that frequent allusions are here made 
to the parochial assembly. The following report of one of these 
assemblies will show how matters were usually managed on these 
occasions. 

Notarial Act. — " This day, at the close of the parochial mass, 
at the usual and customary place, was present at the assembly held 
by the inhabitants of the said parish before X., notary at Corbeil 
undersigned, and the witnesses hereinafter mentioned, the Sieur 
Michaud, vine-dresser, syndic of the said parish, who presented 
the ordinance of the intendant authorizing the assembly, read the 
same, and applied for an official certificate of his due diligence in 
the premises : 

" And then and there appeared an inhabitant of the said parish, 
who stated that the steeple was upon the choir, and, consequently, 
that its repairs should be charged to the curate ; did furthermore 

appear (here follow the names of various parishioners, who, 

on the contrary, consent to the request of the curate) ; and there- 
after appeared fifteen peasants, mechanics, masons, and vine-dress- 
ers, who declare themselves of the same mind as the preceding 

]sr2 



298 NOTES. 

persons. Did also appear the Sieur Raimbaud, vine-dresser, who 
declared that he would agree to whatever monseigneur the intend- 
ant decided in the premises. Did also appear the Sieur X., doc- 
tor of the Sorbonne, curate, who persists in the allegations and 
conclusions of his request. 

" Whereof the said parties have required of us official certifi- 
cate. 

" Done and passed at the said place of Ivry, in front of the 
burial-ground of the said parish, before the undersigned ; and the 
meeting aforesaid lasted from eleven o'clock in the morning till 
two." 

It will be noticed that this parish assembly was a mere admin- 
istrative inquiry, in the same form and as costly as judicial in- 
quiries ; that it never led to a vote or other clear expression of 
the will of the parish ; that it was merely an expression of indi- 
vidual opinions, and constituted no check upon government. Many 
other documents indicate that the only object of parish assemblies 
was to afford information to the intendant, and not to influence his 
decision even in cases where no other interest but that of the 
parish was concerned. 

It may be remarked, also, that this affair gives rise to three sep- 
arate inquiries ; one before the notary, another before the archi- 
tect, and a third before two notaries, to ascertain whether the peo- 
ple have not changed their minds. 

The impost of 724 liv. 18 5., authorized by the Order of 23d 
July, 1748, bears upon all landholders, whether privileged or not. 
This was generally the case in affairs of this kind ; but the share 
of the various rate-payers was not fixed on uniform principles. 
Persons who paid the taille were taxed in proportion to their taille. 
Privileged individuals, on the other hand, were taxed in proportion 
to their assumed fortunes, which gave them a great advantage over 
the former class. 

It appears, finally, that in this matter the distribution of the im- 
post was made by two collectors, inhabitants of the village ; not 
elected, nor serving in their turn, as was usually the custom, but 
chosen and appointed by the intendant's sub-delegate. 

Note w, page 67. 

The pretext which Louis XIV. put forward for destroying the 

municipal liberty of towns was the maladministration of their 

finances ; yet the evil, according to Turgot, continued to exist, and 

even assumed larger proportions after the reform of this monarch. 



NOTES. 29y 

He adds that most cities are heavily in debt at the present time, 
partly for moneys lent to government, and partly for expenses or 
decorations which municipal officers — who dispose of other peo- 
ple's money, who render no account, and receive no instructions 
— are constantly incurring, in order to increase the splendor or the 
profit of their position. 

Note X, page 72. 

THE STATE WAS GUARDIAN OF CONVENTS AS WELL AS COM- 
MUNES ; INSTANCE THEREOF. 

The comptroller-general, authorizing the intendant to pay over 
15,000 livres to the Convent of Carmelites, to which certain in- 
demnities were due, desires the intendant to satisfy himself that 
the money, which represents a capital, is properly invested. Sim- 
ilar instances abound. 

Note y, page 79. 

HOW THE ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALIZATION OF THE OLD REGIME 
CAN BE BEST JUDGED IN CANADA. 

The physiognomy of governments can be best detected in their 
colonies, for there their features are magnified, and rendered more 
conspicuous. When I want to discover the spirit and vices of the 
government of Louis XIV., I must go to Canada. Its deformi- 
ties are seen there as through a microscope. 

A number of obstacles, created by previous occurrences or old 
social forms, which hindered the development of the true tenden- 
cies of government at home, did not exist in Canada. There was 
no nobility, or, at least, none had taken deep root. The Church 
was not dominant. Feudal traditions were lost or obscured. The 
power of the judiciary was not interwoven with old institutions or 
popular customs. There was, therefore, no hindrance to the free 
play of the central power. It could shape all laws according to 
its views. And in Canada, therefore, there was not a shadow of 
municipal or provincial institutions ; and no collective or individ- 
ual action was tolerated. An intendant far more powerful than 
his colleagues in France ; a government managing far more mat- 
ters than it did at home, and desiring to manage every thing from 
Paris, notwithstanding the intervening 1800 leagues ; never adopt- 
ing the great principles v>^hich can render a colony populous and 
prosperous, but, instead, employing all sorts of petty, artificial meth- 



300 NOTES. 

ods, and small devices of tyranny to increase and spread popula- 
tion ; forced cultivation of lands ; all lawsuits growing out of the 
concession of land removed from the jurisdiction of the courts 
and referred to the local administration ; compulsory regulations 
respecting farming and the selection of land — such was the sys- 
tem devised for Canada under Louis XIV. : it was Colbert who 
signed the edicts. One might fancy one's self in the midst of 
modern centralization and in Algeria. Canada is, in fact, the true 
model of what has always been seen there. In both places the 
government numbers as many heads as the people ; it preponder- 
ates, acts, regulates, controls, undertakes every thing, provides for 
every thing, knows far more about the subject's business than he 
does himself — is, in short, incessantly active and sterile. 

In the United States, on the contrary, the English anti-centrali- 
zation system was carried to an extreme. Parishes became inde- 
pendent municipalities, almost democratic republics. The repub- 
lican element, which forms, so to say, the foundation of the English 
constitution and English habits, shows itself and develops without 
hindrance. Government proper does little in England, and indi- 
viduals do a great deal ; in America, government never interferes, 
so to speak, and individuals do every thing. The absence of an 
upper class, which renders the Canadian more defenseless against 
the government than his equals were in France, renders the citizen 
of the English colonies still more independent of the home power. 

In both colonies society ultimately resolved itself into a demo- 
cratic form. But in Canada, so long as it was a French possession 
at least, equality was an accessory of absolutism ; in the British 
colonies it was the companion of liberty. And, so far as the ma- 
terial consequences of the two colonial systems are concerned, it 
is well known that in 1763, at the conquest, the population of Cana- 
da was 60,000 souls, that of the English provinces 3,000,000. 

Note z, page 80. 

AN EXAMPLE, CHOSEN AT HAPHAZARD, OF THE GENERAL REGULA- 
TIONS WHICH THE COUNCIL OF STATE WAS IN THE HABIT OF 
MAKING FOR THE WHOLE OF FRANCE, AND BY WHICH IT CREATED 
SPECIAL MISDEMEANORS OF WHICH THE GOVERNMENT COURTS 
HAD SOLE COGNIZANCE. 

I take the first which I happen to find. Order in Council of 
29th April, 1779, which enacts that thereafter throughout the king- 
dom all sheep-gvowers and sheep-dealers shall mark their sheep 



NOTES. 301 

in a peculiar manner, under penalty of 300 livres fine. " His maj- 
esty orders the intendant to see this order obeyed," it says, whence 
it follows that it devolved upon the intendant to pronounce penal- 
ties incurred. Another instance : An Order in Council of 21st De- 
cember, 1778, forbids express companies and wagoners to ware- 
house the goods they have in charge, under pain of 300 livres fine. 
"His majesty enjoins upon his lieutenant general of police and his 
intendants to see to it." 

Note a, page 92. 

The Provincial Assembly of Guienne cries aloud for new brig- 
ades of horse-police, just as in our day the council-general of the 
department of Aveyron or Lot no doubt demands new brigades of 
gendarmerie. Always the same idea — gendarmerie constitute 
order, and order can not be had with the gendarme except through 
government. The report adds: "Complaint is daily made that 
there is no police in the country." (How could there be? Noble- 
men take no concern for any thing, burghers live in town ; and the 
community is represented by a rude peasant, and has no power at 
all.) " It must be admitted that, except in some cantons in which 
benevolent and just seigniors use their influence over their vassals 
to prevent those appeals to violence to which the country people 
are prone, in consequence of the rudeness of their manners and the 
roughness of their character, there exists hardly any where any 
means of controlling these ignorant, rough, and hot-headed men." 

Such was the manner in which the nobles of the Provincial 
Assembly allowed themselves to be spoken of, and in which the 
Third Estate, comprising half the assembly, spoke of the people 
in public documents. 

Note b, page 93. 
Tobacco licenses were as eagerly sought after under the old re- 
gime as at present. The most distinguished people begged them 
for their dependents. Some, I find, were granted at the request 
of noble ladies, some to please archbishops. 

Note c, page 94. 
Local life was more thoroughly extinguished than almost seems 
credible. One of the roads leading from Maine into Normandy 
had become impassable. Who calls for its repair 1 The district 
of Touraine, which it crosses 1 The province of Normandy, or 
that of Maine, both vitally interested in the cattle-trade of which 



302 NOTES. 

it is the outlet? Some canton particularly injured by the bad 
condition of the road 1 Neither district, nor province, nor canton 
utter a word. The duty of attracting the attention of government 
to the road is left to the traders who use it, and whose wagons 
stick in the mud. They write to Paris to the comptroller-gener- 
al, and beg him to come to their rescue. 

Note d, page 103. 

VARYING VALUE OF SEIGNIORIAL RENTS AND DUES ACCORDING TO' 
PROVINCES. 

Turgot says in his works : "I must remark that the importance 
of these dues is very different in most of the rich provinces, such 
as Normandy, Picardy, and the vicinity of Paris. In the latter, 
riches usually consist in the produce of land ; the farms are large, 
close together, and bring high rents. The seigniorial rents of 
large farms form a very small portion of the income from them, 
and are regarded rather as honorary than lucrative. In poorer 
and worse-farmed provinces, seigniors and men of rank possess 
but little land of their own ; farms, which are much subdivided, 
are burdened with heavy rents in produce, and all the co-tenants 
are jointly responsible for their payment. These rents eat up the 
clearest portion of the income of the land, and constitute the bulk 
of the seignior's revenue." 

Note e, page 111. 

DISCUSSION OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS ANTAGONISTIC TO THE ESTAB- 
LISHMENT OF CASTES. 

The unimportant labors of the agricultural societies of the eight- 
eenth century show how the general discussion of public affairs 
miUtated against castes. Though these assemblages took place 
thirty years prior to the Revolution, in the midst of the old regime, 
the mere fact that they discussed questions in which all classes 
were interested, and that all classes mingled in the discussion, 
drew men together and effected a sort of fusion. Ideas of reason- 
able reform suggested themselves to the minds even of the priv- 
ileged classes, and yet they were mere conversations about agri- 
culture. 

I am satisfied that no government but one which relied wholly 
on its own strength, and invariably dealt with individuals singly, 
as that of the old regime did, could have maintained the ridiculous 



NOTES. 303 

and insane inequality which existed at the time of the Revolution. 
The least touch of self-government would have soon altered or 
destroyed it. 

Note f, page 111. 

Provincial liberties may survive national liberty for a time, when 
they are of old standing, and interwoven with manners, customs, 
and recollections, and the despotism is new. But it is unreason- 
able to suppose that local liberties can be created at will, or main- 
tained for any length of time, when general liberty is extinct. 

Note g, page 112. 

Turgot gives a statement of the extent of the privileges of the 
nobility, in the matter of taxation, in a memorial to the king. It 
appears to me to be quite correct. 

1st. Privileged persons may claim exemption from taxes for a 
farm which consumes the labor of four plows. Such a farm in 
the neighborhood of Paris would usually pay 2000 francs of taxes. 

2dly. The same privileged persons pay nothing for woods, mead- 
ows, rivers, ponds, or inclosed lands near their chateau, whatever be 
their extent. Some cantons are almost wholly laid out in meadow 
or vineyard; in these, seigniors who have their lands managed by a 
steward pay no impost whatever. All the taxes fall on the taille- 
payers. The advantage of this is immense. 

Note h,page 113. 

INDIRECT PRIVILEGE IN RESPECT OF TAXES. DIFFERENCE IN THE 

MANNER OF COLLECTION WHEN THE TAX IS LEVIED ON ALL 
ALIKE. 

Turgot draws a picture of this, which I have reason to believe 
is correct. 

" The indirect advantages of the privileged classes with regard 
to the capitation-tax are very great. The capitation-tax is natu- 
rally an arbitrary impost ; it is impossible to divide it among the citi- 
zens at large otherwise than blindly. It was found convenient to 
take the taille rolls, which were already made, as a basis. A special 
roll was made for the privileged classes ; but, as the latter made ob- 
jections, and the taille-payers had no one to speak for them, it came 
about that the capitation of the privileged classes was gradually re- 
duced in the provinces to a very small sum, while the taille-payers 
paid as much for capitation as the principal of the taille." 



304 NOTES. 

Note i, page 112. 

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF INEQUALITY IN THE COLLECTION OP A 
UNIFORM TAX. 

It is known that local imposts were levied on all classes equally ; 
"which sums," say the Orders in Council authorizing these expen- 
ditures," shall be levied on all persons without distinction, whether 
privileged or not, jointly with the capitation-tax, or in proportion 
thereto." 

Note that, as the capitation-tax of taille-payers, which was as- 
similated to the taille,was always heavier than the capitation of 
privileged persons, the very plan which seemed to favor uniform- 
ity kept up the inequality between the two. 

Note 'k,page 112. 

SAME SUBJECT. 

I find in a bill of 1764, which designed to render the taxes uni- 
form, all sorts of provisions that were intended to preserve a dis- 
tinction in favor of the privileged classes in respect to the tax levy. 
For instance, no property of theirs could be appraised for taxation 
except in their presence or in the presence of their attorney. 

Note I, page 112. 

HOW THE GOVERNMENT ADMITTED THAT, EVEN IN THE CASE OF 
TAXES WEIGHING ALIKE ON ALL CLASSES, THE TAX OUGHT TO 
BE COLLECTED DIFFERENTLY FROM THE PRIVILEGED AND UN- 
PRIVILEGED CLASSES. 

"I see," said the minister in 1766, "that the most difficult taxes 
to collect are those which are due by nobles and privileged per- 
sons, in consequence of the consideration which the tax-collectors 
feel bound to pay to these persons. It has resulted from this that 
they are heavily in arrears on their capitation-tax and twentieths 
(the taxes which they paid in common with the people). 

Note m, page 125. 

Arthur Young, in his Journey in 1789, draws a picture in which 
the condition of the two societies is so agreeably sketched and so 
skillfully set that I can not resist giving it here. 

In traveling through France during the emotion caused by the 
capture of the Bastille, Young was arrested in a village by a mob, 



NOTES. 305 

who, seeing no cocarde on his hat, were about to drag him to jail. 
To get out of the scrape, Young improvises the following little 
speech : 

" ' Gentlemen, it has just been said that the taxes are to be paid 
just as before. The taxes must be paid, certainly, but not as be- 
fore. They must be paid as they are in England. We have many 
more taxes than you ; but the Third Estate, the people, pays none 
of them ; they fall upon the rich. In my country, windows pay 
a tax ; but a man who has only six in his house pays nothing. A 
seignior pays his twentieths and the taille, but the owner of a small 
garden escapes scot free. Rich men pay for their horses, their 
carriages, their servants, for the right of shooting their own par- 
tridges ; but small landholders know nothing of these taxes. More 
than this : we have, in England, a tax that is levied on the rich 
for the maintenance of the poor. If, then, taxes are still to be 
paid, they must be paid on a new plan. The English plan is the 
best. ' 

" As my bad French," adds Young, " suited their patois well 
enough, they understood what I said. They applauded every 
word of this speech, and concluded that I might be a good fellow 
— an impression which I confirmed by crying Vive le Tiers! They 
then let me pass with a hurrah." 

Note n, page 127. 
The church of X., election of ChoUet, was falling into ruin. 
Measures were being taken to repair it, according to the plan in- 
dicated by the Order of 16th December, 1684, that is to say, by a 
tax on all the citizens. When the collectors proceed to levy the 
tax, the Marquis of X., seignior of the parish, declares that, as he 
undertakes to repair the choir without assistance, he can not be 
expected to contribute to the tax. The other inhabitants reply 
very reasonably that, as seignior and large tithe-holder (he possess- 
ed, no doubt, the tithes enfeoffed), he was bound to repair the choir, 
and that he was by no means, on that account, relieved from his 
obligation to contribute to the other repairs. On reference to the 
intendant, he decides against the marquis and in favor of the col- 
lectors. The records of the affair contain more than ten letters 
of the marquis, each more pressing than the last, begging that the 
other people of the parish be made to pay in his stead, and con- 
descending to call the intendant " monseigneur," and even to "sup- 
plicate him." 



306 NOTES. 

Note o, page 128. 

EXAMPLE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE GOVERNMENT OF THE 
OLD REGIME RESPECTED ACQUIRED RIGHTS, FORMAL CONTRACTS, 
AND CITY OR ASSOCIATE LIBERTIES. 

Royal declaration " suspending, in time of war, repayment of all 
loans made to the crown by cities, bourgs, colleges, commmiities, 
hospitals, poor-houses, corporations of artisans and tradesmen, and 
others, for the payment of which town or other dues were pledged; 
interest to accrue on the same." 

This was not only suspending payment at the time fixed, but 
laying hands on the security pledged for the payment of the loan. 
Similar measures were common under the government of the old 
regime ; they could never have occurred in a country where a 
free press or free assemblies existed. Compare these proceedings 
with those which have taken place in England and America in 
the like circumstances. Here the contempt for right was not 
less flagrant than the contempt for local liberties. 

Note 'p,page 131. 

The case cited in the text is not the only one in which the priv- 
ileged classes perceived that they were affected by the feudal dues 
which weighed upon the peasantry. An agricultural society, com- 
posed wholly of privileged persons, said, thirty years before the 
Revolution, 

" Irredeemable rents, whether ground-rents or feudal rents at- 
taching upon land, become so onerous to the debtor when they are 
considerable, that they ruin him and the land too. He is forced 
to neglect his farm, for he can not effect loans on a property so 
burdened, nor can he find a purchaser for it. If the rent were 
redeemable, he would soon find a lender to advance money to pay 
it off, or a purchaser to extinguish it. One is always glad to im- 
prove a property of which one believes one's self peaceable owner. 
It would be of infinite service to agriculture if a means could be 
found of rendering these rents redeemable. Many feudal seigniors 
are convinced of this, and would gladly concur in any arrange- 
ment for the purpose. It would therefore be desirable to indicate 
a plan for redeeming all these ground-rents." 

Note q, page 133. 
All public functionaries, including the agent of the tax-farmers, 
enjoyed exemptions from taxes. The privilege was granted them 



NOTES. 307 

by the ordinance of 1681. An intendant says, in a letter address- 
ed to the minister in 1783, " The niost numerous class of privi- 
leged persons consists of clerks of the gabel, of traites, of the do- 
main, of the post, of aids, and other excise of all kinds. One or 
more of these are to be found in every parish." 

The object was to prevent the ministers from proposing to the 
Council a measure to extend the exemption from taxes to the 
clerks and servants of these privileged agents. The farmers-gen- 
eral, says the intendant, are always asking for extensions of the 
privilege, in order to obtain clerks without paymg them a salary. 

Note r, page 133. 
Venal offices were not wholly unknown abroad. In Germany 
some small sovereigns had introduced the system ; but they had 
applied it to but few offices, and these subordinate ones. The sys- 
tem was carried out on a grand scale in France only. 

Note s, page 138. 
One must not be surprised — though it certainly seems surpris- 
ing — to see functionaries of the old government, closely connected 
with the administration, go to law before the Parliament about the 
limits of their respective powers. The fact is easily explained : 
the questions at issue were questions of public administration, but 
they were also questions of private property. What here appears 
to be an encroachment of the judiciary was, in fact, nothing but 
a consequence of the fault which the government committed in 
selling offices. All places being bought, and their incumbents be- 
ing paid by fees, it was impossible to alter the functions of an 
office without injuring individual rights which had been purchased 
for a valuable consideration. One example out of a thousand : 
the lieutenant general of police of Mans institutes an action against 
the financial department of that city to claim the right of paving 
the streets, and obtaining fees thereon, that being, he says, part 
of the police of the streets, which devolves upon him. The de- 
partment replies that the very title of its commission intrusts it 
with the paving of the streets. This time it is not the king's 
council which decides between them ; as the point involved is 
chiefly the interest of the capital invested by the lieutenant in the 
purchase of his office, the case goes before the Parliament. In- 
stead of being a government question, it is a civil suit. 



308 NOTES. 

Note t, page 140. 

ANALYSIS OF THE CAHIERS OF THE NOBILITY IN 1789. 

The French Revolution is the only one, I believe, at the begin- 
ning of which the different classes of society were enabled to pre- 
sent an authentic account Of the ideas they had conceived, and 
express the feelings which animated them, before the Revolution 
had distorted or modified those ideas and feelings. This authen- 
tic account was recorded, as is known, in the cahiers which the 
three orders drew up in 1789. These cahiers or memoires were 
drawn up in perfect freedom, in the midst of the widest publicity, 
by each of the three orders ; they were the fruit of long discus- 
sion by the parties in interest, and ripe deliberation by their au- 
thors ; for in those days, when the government spoke to the na- 
tion, it did not undertake to answer its own questions. At the 
time the cahiers were composed, the principal parts of them were 
collected and published in three volumes, which are to be found 
in all libraries. The originals are deposited in the national ar- 
chives, and with them the reports of the assemblies which drew 
them up, and a portion of the correspondence between M. Necker 
and his agents in reference to the subject. This collection forms 
a long series of folio volumes, and is the most precious document 
we have on the subject of ancient France. All who desire to be- 
come acquainted with the spirit of our forefathers at the time of 
the Revolution should consult it without delay. 

I had imagined that perhaps the printed extract, in three vol- 
umes, which I have mentioned above, was a one-sided performance, 
and an unfaithful reflection of this immense collection ; but I find, 
on comparing the two, that the smaller work is a correct minia- 
ture of the greater. 

The following extract from the cahiers of the nobility shows 
the spirit which animated the majority of that body. It shows 
which of their old privileges the nobility desired at all hazards to 
keep, which they were half inclined to abandon, and which they 
proposed of their own accord to sacrifice. It discloses especially 
the views which pervaded the whole body on the subject of polit- 
ical liberty. Curious and melancholy spectacle ! 

Individual Rights. — The nobility demand, in the first place, 
that an explicit declaration of the rights of man be made, and that 
that declaration bear witness to the liberty and secure the safety 
of all men. 

Personal LinERTY. — They desire that the serfdom of the 



NOTES. 309 

glebe be abolished wherever it may still exist, and that means be 
sought for the extinction of the slave-trade and negro slavery ; 
that all be free to travel whithersoever they will, and to reside 
where they please, within or without the kingdom, without being 
liable to arbitrary arrest ; that the police regulations be amended, 
and that the police be under control of the magistracy, even in case 
of riot ; that no one be arrested and judged except by his natural 
judges ; that, in consequence, state prisons and other illegal places 
of detention be suppressed. Some demand the destruction of the 
Bastille. The nobility of Paris insist warmly on this point. 

All letters of cachet should be prohibited. If the danger of the 
state requires the arrest of a citizen who can not be handed over 
directly to the ordinary courts of justice, measures must be taken 
to prevent injustice, either by notifying the Council of State, or in 
some other way. 

The nobility desire that all special commissions, irregular courts, 
privileges of com?nitiimus, reprieves, be abolished ; that the most 
severe penalties be laid upon all who execute or order the execu- 
tion of an arbitrary command ; that the ordinary courts — which 
alone should be preserved — take all necessary measures to se- 
cure individual liberty, especially in criminal matters ; that justice 
be administered gratuitously, and useless jurisdictions abolished. 
One cahier says, " Magistrates were made for the people, not the 
people for magistrates." They demand that an honorary counsel 
and advocates for the poor be established in every bailiwick ; that 
all examinations be public, and prisoners be allowed to defend 
themselves ; that in criminal matters the prisoner be provided 
wdth a counsel, and the judge assisted by a number of citizens of 
the same order as the prisoner, who shall decide upon the fact of 
the crime or misdemeanor charged (reference is here made to the 
constitution of England) ; that penalties be proportioned to of- 
fenses, and uniform ; that capital punishment be employed more 
rarely, and all corporal punishments, torture, &c., be abolished; 
that the condition of prisoners be improved, especially those who 
are confined before their trial. 

The cahiers demand that an effort be made to respect individual 
liberty in the recruiting service both of soldiers and sailors. It 
should be allowable to avoid military service by paying a sum of 
money. No lots should be drawn save in the presence of deputies 
of the three orders. Finally, an attempt should be made to recon- 
cile military discipline and subordination with the rights of the 



310 NOTES. 

citizen and the freeman. Blows with the flat of the sword should 
be forbidden. 

Liberty and Inviolability of Property. — Property should 
be inviolable, and should never be molested save for the necessities 
of the public weal. In such cases the government should pay a 
high price, and that promptly. Confiscations should be abolished. 

Liberty of Trade, Labor, and Industry. — Freedom of labor 
and trade should be secured. In consequence, all monopolies should 
be taken from trade-companies, as well as other privileges of the 
kind. No custom-houses should exist except on the frontier. 

Liberty of Religion. — The Catholic faith shall be the only 
dominant religion in France, but all other religions shall be toler- 
ated, and persons who are not Catholics shall be reinstated in their 
properties and civil rights. 

Liberty of the Press, Inviolability of Letters in the 
Post-office. — The liberty of the press shall be secured, and a 
law shall fix beforehand the restrictions that may be established 
in the interest of the public. No works but such as treat of relig- 
ious doctrine shall be liable to ecclesiastical censorship ; in the 
case of all others, it shall be sufiicient that the names of the author 
and printer are known. Many demand that charges against the 
press be tried before jury. 

All the cahiers insist energetically on the inviolability of secrets 
confided to the post, so that private letters may never be brought in 
accusation against individuals. The opening of letters, say they, 
bluntly, is the most odious form of espionage, as it violates the 
public faith. 

Education. — The cahiers of the nobility confine themselves to 
recommending that all proper means be taken to spread education, 
both in cities and in the country, and that each boy be taught with 
a view to his future vocation. They insist on the necessity of 
teaching children the political rights and duties of the citizen, and 
suggest that a catechism on the principal points of the Constitution 
be used in schools. They do not, however, point out any means 
to be used to facilitate and spread education. They merely de- 
mand educational establishments for the children of the poor no- 
bility. 

Care to be taken of the People. — Many of the cahiers de- 
mand that the people be treated with more consideration. They 
exclaim against the police regulations, in virtue of which they say 
hosts of mechanics and useful citizens are daily thrust into prisons 
and jails without any regular commitment, and often on mere sus- 



Nt)TEfcj. 311 

picions, a manifest violation of natural liberty. All the cahiers 
demand that coriees be definitely abolished. A majority of baili- 
wicks desire that rights of banality and toll be made redeemable. 
Many demand that the collection of various feudal dues be ren- 
dered less oppressive, and that the freehold duty be abolished. 
One cahier observes that the government is interested in facili- 
tating the purchase and sale of lands. This is precisely the rea- 
son that will soon be urged for abolishing at a blow all seignio- 
rial rights, and throwing all mainmortable lands into the market. 
Many cahiers ask that the right of pigeon-houses be rendered less 
prejudicial to agriculture. As for the establishments for the pres- 
ervation of the king's game, known by the name of captainries, 
they demand their immediate abolition, as being subversive of the 
rights of property. They desire to see, in lieu of the present taxes, 
new ones established which shall be less onerous to the people. 

The nobility demand that an effort be made to disseminate plen- 
ty and comfort throughout the rural districts ; that looms and fac- 
tories of coarse stuffs be established in the villages, so as to occu- 
py the country-people during the idle season ; that in each baili- 
wick public store-houses be founded, under the inspection of the 
provincial governments, to provide for seasons of famine, and sus- 
tain the regularity of prices ; that attempts be made to improve 
agriculture and better the condition of the country parts ; that more 
public works be undertaken, and especially that marshes be drain- 
ed, and means taken to guard against inundations, &c. ; finally, 
that special encouragements be offered to agriculture and trade in 
all the provinces. 

The cahiers suggest that, instead of the present hospitals, small 
establishments of the kind be founded in every district ; that the 
poor-houses be abolished, and replaced by work-houses ; that a 
charitable fund be placed at the disposal of the Provincial States ; 
that surgeons, physicians, and midwives be appointed for every 
county to tend the poor gratuitously, and paid by the province ; 
that the Courts of Justice should always be open to the poor, free 
of charge ; that thought be taken for the establishment of blind, 
deaf and dumb asylums, foundling-hospitals, &c. 

In all these matters the nobility express their general views as 
to what reforms are needed ; they do not enter into details. It is 
easy to see that they have been less frequently brought into con- 
tact with the poor than the lower order of clergy, and that, having 
seen less of their sufferings, they have reflected less on the sub- 
ject of a remedy. 



312 NOTES. 

Of Eligibility to Office, of the Hierarchy of Ranks, 

AND OF THE HONORARY PRIVILEGES OF THE NoBILITY. -^ It is 

chiefly, or, rather, it is only when they come to deal with distinc- 
tions of rank and class divisions that the nobles turn their backs 
on the prevailing spirit of reform. They make important conces- 
sions, but, on the whole, they adhere to the spirit of the old regime. 
They feel that they are fighting for life. Their cahiers thus de- 
mand energetically that the nobility and the clergy be maintained 
as distinct orders. They even desire that a method be devised 
for preserving the purity of the order of the nobility ; that, for in- 
stance, the practice of selling titles or coupling them with certain 
offices be prohibited, and that rank be the reward of long and mer- 
itorious services rendered to the state. They wish that all the 
false nobles could be found out and prosecuted. All the cahiers, 
in short, demand that the nobility be maintained in all its honors. 
Some think it would be well for men of rank to wear a distinctive 
badge. 

Nothing could be more characteristic than such a demand ; 
nothing could indicate more plainly the similarity between the 
noble and the commoner. Generally speaking, the nobility, while 
abandoning many of their beneficial rights, cling with anxiety and 
warmth to those which are purely honorary. They want not only 
to preserve those which they possess, but also to invent new ones. 
So conscious were they that they were being dragged into the 
vortex of democracy : so terribly did they dread perishing there. 
Singular fact ! Their instinct warned them of the danger, but they 
never perceived it. 

As to the distribution of office, the nobility demand that posts 
in the magistracy be no longer sold, but that any citizen of suit- 
able age and capacity be eligible as a candidate to be presented 
by the nation to the king. In respect to military rank, a majority 
of the cahiers are against excluding the Third Estate, and con- 
ceive that a man who has deserved well of his country ought to 
be able to attain the highest rank. Several cahiers say, " The 
order of the nobility disapproves all laws which close the door of 
military preferment to the order of the Third Estate." Some few, 
however, suggest that noblemen alone should have the right of 
entering the army as officers without passing through the inferior 
grades. Nearly all the cahiers demand that uniform rules be es- 
tablished with regard to promotion, that advancement be not whol- 
ly obtained by favor, and that, with the exception of the highest 
posts, promotion proceed by seniority. 



NOTES. 313 

As for clerical functions, they demand that elections be re-estab- 
lished for the distribution of livings, or, at all events, that the king 
appoint a committee to guide him in distributing ecclesiastical 
preferment. 

They say that henceforth pensions must be granted with more 
discrimination, and not accumulated in certain families ; that no 
citizen must receive two pensions, or draw pay for two offices at 
once ; that survivorships must be abolished. 

Church and Clergy. — When they have done with their own 
rights and peculiar constitution, and turn to the privileges and con- 
stitution of the Church, the nobility are not so timid ; they have 
a very sharp eye for abuses. 

They demand that the clergy be deprived of all exemptions 
from taxes ; that they pay their debts, and do not call upon the 
nation to pay them ; that the monastic orders be thoroughly re- 
formed. Most of the cahiers declare that these institutions have 
departed from the spirit of their founders. 

Most of the bailiwicks desire that tithes be rendered less in- 
jurious to agriculture ; several demand their entire abolition. One 
cahier says that " tithes are for the most part exacted by those 
curates who give themselves the least trouble to supply their flocks 
with spiritual food." The first Order, as is seen, handled the sec- 
ond unceremoniously. Nor was it more respectful in dealing 
with the Church itself. Many bailiwicks formally assert the right 
of the States-General to suppress certain religious orders, and ap- 
ply their property to other uses. Seventeen bailiwicks declare 
that the States-General may regulate ecclesiastical discipline. 
Many say that there are too many fete-days ; that they injure ag- 
riculture, and favor drunkenness ; that, in consequence, a great 
number of them must be suppressed, and Sundays kept instead. 

Political Rights. — As to these, the cahiers recognize the 
right of all Frenchmen to take part directly or indirectly in the 
government, that is to say, to be electors and eligible. But this 
right is restricted by the distinction of ranks ; that is to say, no 
one can be elected but by and for his Order. This principle laid 
out, representation should be so devised as to secure to each Order 
an active share in the public affairs. 

Opinions are divided as to the way of taking votes in the as- 
sembly of the States-General : a majority advocate voting by Or- 
der, others tliink this rule ought not to apply to questions of tax- 
ation, and others, again, object to it altogether. These latter say, 
" Each member shall have a vote, and all questions shall be de- 

o 



314 NOTES, 

cided by a majority of votes. This is the only rational plan, and 
the only one that can extinguish that esprit de corps which has 
been the only source of our misfortunes, draw men together, and 
lead them to the result which the nation is entitled to expect of 
an assembly in which patriotism and the virtues are enlightened 
by learning." Still, as this innovation might be fraught with dan- 
ger if hastily introduced in the present state of the public mind, 
many are for postponing its adoption to subsequent assemblies of 
the States-General. In any event, the nobility demand that each 
order preserve the dignity that is meet in Frenchmen ; that, con- 
sequently, the old humiliating forms which were imposed on the 
Third Estate — such as bending the knee — ^be abolished. One ca- 
hier says that the " sight of one man on his knees before another 
is offensive to the dignity of man, and indicates an unnatural in- 
equality among men whose essential rights are the same." . 

Of the form of Government and its Constitutional Prin- 
ciples. — As to the form of government, the nobility demand the 
maintenance of royalty, the preservation of legislative, judicial, 
and executive powers in the hands of the king, but, at the same 
time, the establishment of fundamental laws for the purpose of 
guarding the rights of the nation against the exercise of arbi- 
trary pov/er. 

Consequently, all the cahiers proclaim that the nation is entitled 
to be represented in the States-General, which body must be nu- 
merous enough to secure its independence. They desire that these 
States meet at periodical intervals, and at every change of mon- 
arch without special summons. Many bailiwicks express a wish 
to see this assembly permanent. If the States-General are not 
convened at the time appointed, it ought to be lawful to refuse to 
pay taxes. Some cahiers propose that during the interval between 
the sessions of the States a small committee be intrusted with the 
duty of watching the administration ; but the bulk oppose this 
scheme flatly, on the ground that such a committee would be un- 
constitutional. The reason they allege is curious. They say 
there would be reason to fear that so small a body could easily be 
seduced by government. 

The nobility deny to ministers the right of dissolving the as- 
sembly, and propose that they be prosecuted before the courts 
when they disturb it with their intrigues ; they desire that no of- 
ficial, or person in any way dependent on government, shall be a 
deputy ; that the persons of deputies shall be inviolable, and that 
they shall not be liable to account for opinions expressed in de- 



NOTES. 315 

bate ; finally, that all sittings of the assembly shall be public, and 
that the nation be made a spectator by printing the debates. 

The nobility unanimously demand that the principles which must 
govern the state administration be applied to the administration of 
every portion of the national territory ; hence, that in every prov- 
ince, district, and parish, assemblies be established composed of 
members freely elected for a limited period. 

Many cahiers think that the offices of intendant and receiver- 
general should be abolished ; all are of opinion that thenceforth 
the business of distributing taxes, and managing provincial busi- 
ness, should be left to the provincial assemblies. They advise 
that a similar plan be adopted with regard to county and parochial 
assembhes, which henceforth should be under the control of the 
Provincial States. 

Division of Powers: Legislative Power. — In dividing pow- 
er between the assembled nation and the king, the nobility ask 
that no law shall take effect until it has been sanctioned by the 
States-General and the king, and recorded in the registers of the 
courts appointed to enforce it ; that the business of establishing 
and fixing the quotas of taxes shall belong exclusively to the 
States-General ; that subsidies voted shall only be considered as 
having been appropriated for the interval between one session of 
the States and another ; that all taxes, established or levied with- 
out the consent of the »States, shall be deemed illegal, and that all 
ministers and collectors who shall have ordered or levied such- 
taxes shall be prosecuted for extortion ; that, on the same prin- 
ciple, no loan shall be contracted without the consent of the States- 
General, but that a limited credit shall be opened by the States, to 
be used by government in case of war or sudden calamity, until a 
new session of the States can be called ; that all the national treas- 
uries shall be under the supervision of the States ; that the ex- 
penses of each department shall be fixed by them, and that the 
most carefiil precautions shall be taken to prevent any appropria- 
tion being exceeded. 

Most of the cahiers demand the suppression of those vexatious 
imposts known by the names of insinuation dues, centieme denier, 
ratification dues, and comprised under the title of regie of the 
king's domains (one cahier says : " The word regie would alone 
suffice to condemn them, since it implies that property which act- 
ually belongs to citizens is owned by the king") ; that all the pub- 
lic domains which are not sold shall be placed under the govern- 
ment of the Provincial States, and that no ordinance or edict for 



316 NOTES. 

raising extraordinary taxes shall be issued, except with the con- 
sent of the three orders of the nation. 

The idea of the nobility obviously was to transfer the whole ad- 
ministration of the finances, including loans, taxes, and this class 
of imposts, to the nation as represented by the general and pro- 
vincial assemblies. 

Judicial Power. — In the same way, the organization of the 
judiciary tends to make the power of the judges largely dependent 
upon the assembled nation. Thus several cahiers declare : 

" That magistrates shall be responsible for their acts to the as- 
sembled nation ;" that they shall only be dismissed with the con- 
sent of the States-General ; that no court shall, on any pretext 
whatever, be disturbed in the exercise of its functions without the 
consent of these States , that delinquencies of the Court of Cassa- 
tion and of the Parliaments shall be judged by these States.. Most 
of the cahiers recommend that no judges but such as the people 
present for office be appointed by the king. 

Executive Power. — This is wholly reserved to the king, but 
it is limited in order to prevent abuses. 

Thus, as to the administration, the cahiers demand that the ac- 
counts of the various departments be printed and made public, and 
that the ministers be responsible to the nation assembled ; and in 
like manner, that the king be bound to communicate his intentions 
to the States-General before he can employ the troops on foreign 
service. At home, the troops shall not be used against the people 
without a requisition from the States-General. The standing ar- 
my shall be limited ; and in ordinary seasons, two thirds only shall 
be kept in effective service. As to the foreign troops which the 
king may have in his service, they must be kept away from the 
heart of the kingdom, and stationed on the frontier. 

The most striking feature of the cahiers of the nobility — a feat- 
ure which no extract can reproduce — is the perfect harmony 
which exists between these noblemen and their age. They are 
imbued with its spirit and speak its language. They speak of 
" the inalienable rights of man," " principles inherent to the social 
compact." In treating of individuals, they speak of their rights ; 
in alluding to society, they talk of its duties. Political principles 
seem to them " as absolute as moral truths, both the one and the 
other having reason for their basis." When they want to abolish 
the remains of serfdom, they say they must " efface the last traces 
of human degradation." They sometimes call Louis XVI. a "cit- 
izen king," and constantly allude to the crime of " high-treason 



NOTES. 317 

against the nation," with which they are so soon themselves to be 
charged. In their eyes, as in those of every one else, public edu- 
cation seems the grand panacea, and its director must be the state. 
One cahier says that " the States-General will give their attention 
to forming the national character by modifying the education of 
children." Like their contemporaries, they are Ibnd of uniform- 
ity in legislative measures, always excepting every thing that 
concerns the existence of the Orders. They seek a uniform ad- 
ministration, uniform laws, &c., as ardently as the Third Estate. 
They call for all kinds of reforms, and those radical enough. They 
are for abolishing or transforming all the taxes without exception, 
and the whole judicial system, with the exception of the seigniorial 
courts, which only need improvement. Like all other Frenchmen, 
they regard France as a trial-field — a sort of political model-farm 
— in which every thing should be tried, every thing turned upside 
down, except the little spot in which their particular privileges 
grow. To their honor, it may even be said that they did not 
wholly spare that spot. In a word, it is seen from these cahiers 
that the only thing the nobles lacked to effect the Revolution was 
the rank of commoners. 

Note u,page 14L 

EXAMPLE OP THE RELIGIOUS GOVERNMENT OF AN ECCLESIASTICAL 
PROVINCE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. The archbishop. 

2. Seven vicars general. 

3. Two ecclesiastical courts called ofiicialities : the one, known 
as the "metropolitan officiality," having cognizance of all sen- 
tences of the suffragans ; the other, known as the " diocesan ofii- 
ciality," having cognizance, first, of all personal affairs among the 
clergy, and, secondly, of all disputes regarding the validity of mar- 
riages, in reference to the sacrament. This last tribunal is com- 
posed of two judges : there are attorneys and notaries attached 
to it. 

4. Two fiscal courts : one, styled the diocesan office, has orig- 
inal jurisdiction over all disputes which may arise respecting the 
taxes of the clergy in the diocese (the clerg}?-, as is known, im- 
posed their own taxes). This tribunal consisted of the archbishop, 
presiding, and six other priests. The other court hears appeals 
from the other diocesan offices of the ecclesiastical province. All 
these courts admit lawyers, and hear cases pleaded in due form. 



318 NOTES. 

Note V, page 142. 

SPIRIT OF THE CLERGY IN THE PROVINCIAL STATES AND ASSEM- 
BLIES. 

What I say in the text of the States of Languedoc applies 
equally to the Provincial States which assembled in 1779 and 1787, 
especially those of Haute Guienne. The members of the clergy 
are distinguished in this assembly for their learning, their activity, 
their liberality. The proposition to make the reports of the as- 
sembly public comes from the Bishop of Rodez. 

Note vf, page 143. 

This liberal tendency of the clergy in political matters, which 
was evidenced in 1789, was not the fruit of the excitement of the 
moment; it was of old standing. It was witnessed in Berri in 
1779, when the clergy offered 68,000 livres as a free gift if the 
provincial administration were allowed to subsist. 

Note X, page 145. 
Note that political society was disjointed, but that civil society 
still held together. In the heart of the different classes individ- 
uals were linked together ; there even subsisted some trace of the 
old bond of union between seigniors and people. These peculiar- 
ities of civil society had their influence on politics ; men thus 
united formed irregular and ill-organized masses, but bodies that 
were certain to be found refractory by government. The Revo- 
lution burst these ties, and substituted no political bonds in their 
stead ; it thus paved the way for both equality and servitude. 

Note y, page 146. 

EXAMPLE OF THE TONE IN WHICH THE COURTS SPOKE OF CERTAIN 
ARBITRARY MEASURES. 

It appears from a memorial laid before the comptroller-general 
by the intendant of the district of Paris, that it was the custom 
of that district that each parish should have two syndics, one 
elected by the people in an assembly over which the sub-delegate 
presided, the other appointed by the intendant, and directed to 
superintend his colleague. A quarrel took place between the two 
syndics of the parish of Rueil, the one who was elected refusing 
to obey his colleague. The intendant induced M. de Breteuil to 
imprison the refractory syndic for a fortnight in the prison of La 



NOTES. 319 

Force ; on his liberation he was discharged, and a new syndic ap- 
pointed in his stead. Thereupon the syndic appealed to the Par- 
liament. I have not been able to find the conclusion of the pro- 
ceedings, but the Parliament took occasion to declare that the 
imprisonment of the syndic and the nullification of his election 
could not but be considered " arbitrary and despotic acts." The 
courts were sometimes badly muzzled in those days. 

Note 7., page 150. 
The educated and wealthy classes, the burghers included, were 
far from being oppressed or enslaved under the old regime. On 
the contrary, they had generally too much freedom ; for the crown 
could not prevent them from securing their own position at the 
sacrifice of the people's, and, indeed, almost always felt bound to 
purchase their good-will or soothe their animosity by abandoning 
the people to their mercy. It may be said that a Frenchman be- 
longing to this class in the eighteenth century was better able to 
resist government and protect himself than an Englishman of the 
same period would have been in the like case. The crown felt 
bound to use more tenderness and deal more gently with him than 
the English government would have done to a man of the same 
standing. So wrong it is to confound independence with liberty. 
No one is less independent than a citizen of a free state. 

Note 2i,page 150. 

A REASON WHICH OFTEN COMPELLED THE GOVERNMENT OF THE 
OLD REGIME TO USE MODERATION. 

In ordinary times, the most perilous acts for governments are 
the augmentation of old or the creation of nev/ taxes. In olden 
times, when a king had expensive tastes, v/hen he rushed into 
wild political schemes, when he let his finances fall into disorder, 
or when he needed large sums of money to sustain himself by 
gaining over his opponents, by paying heavy salaries that were 
not earned, by keeping numerous armies on foot, by undertaking 
extensive works, &c., he was obliged to have recourse to taxa- 
tion, and this at once aroused all classes, especially that one which 
achieves violent revolutions — the people. Nowadays, in the same 
circumstances, loans are effected, which are not immediately felt, 
and whose burden falls on the next generation. 



320 NOTES. 

Note b, page 152. 

One of the many examples of this is to be found in the election 
of Mayence. The chief domains of that election were farmed out 
to farmers-general, who hired as sub-farmers small wretched peas- 
ants, who had nothing in the world, and to whom the most neces- 
sary farm-tools had to be furnished. It is easy to understand how 
creditors of this stamp would deal harshly with the farmers or 
debtors of the feudal seignior whom they represented, and would 
render the feudal tenure more oppressive than it had been in the 
Middle Ages. 

Note c, page 152. 

ANOTHER EXAMPLE. 

The inhabitants of Montbazon had entered on the taille-roll the 
stewards of a duchy owned by the Prince of Rohan, in whose 
name it was worked. The prince, who was no doubt very rich, 
not only has " this abuse," as he calls it, corrected, but recovers 
a sum of 5344 livres 15 sous, which he had been wrongfully made 
to pay, and has the same charged to the inhabitants. 

Note d, joa^e 154. 

EXAMPLE OF THE EFFECT OF THE PECUNIARY RIGHTS OF THE 
CLERGY IN ALIENATING THE AFFECTIONS OF THOSE WHOSE 
ISOLATION SHOULD HAVE MADE THEM FRIENDS OF THE CHURCH. 

The curate of Noisai declares that the people are bound to re- 
pair his barn and wine-press, and proposes that a local tax be im- 
posed for the purpose. The intendant replies that the people are 
only bound to repair the parson's house ; the curate, who seems 
more attentive to his farm than to his flock, must himself repair 
his barn and wine-press. (1767.) 

Note e,page 157. 

The following passage is taken from a clear and moderate me- 
morial presented in 1788 by the peasantry to a provincial as- 
sembly : " To the other grievances incident to the collection of 
the taille must be added that of the bailiff's followers. They 
usually appear five times during the levy. They are, in general, 
invalid soldiers or Swiss. At each visit they remain four or five 
days in the parish, and for each of them 36 sous a day are added 
to the tax-levy. As for the distribution of the tax, we will not 



NOTES. 321 

expose the well-known abuses of authority, or the bad effects of a 
distribution made by persons who are often incapable, and almost 
invariably partial and vindictive. These causes have, however, 
been a source of trouble and strife. They have led to lawsuits 
which have been very costly to litigants, and very advantageous 
to the places where the courts sit." 

Note f, page 158. 

SUPERIORITY OF THE METHODS USED IN THE PAYS d'eTATS AD- 
MITTED BY OFFICIALS OF THE CENTRAL GOVRENMENT ITSELF. 

In a confidential letter dated 3d June, 1772, and addressed by 
the Director of Taxes to the intendant, it is stated, " In the pays 
(Tetats the imposition is a fixed percentage, which is exacted and 
really paid by the taxable. This percentage is raised in the levy 
in proportion to the increase in the total required by the king (a 
million, for instance, instead of 900,000 livres). This is a very 
simple matter. In our districts, on the contrary, the tax is per- 
sonal, and, to a certain degree, arbitrary. Some pay what they 
owe, others only half, others a third, others a quarter, and some 
nothing at all. How is it possible to increase such a tax one 
ninth, for instance V 

Note g, page 161. 

ARBITRARY IMPRISONMENT FOR CORVEES. 

Example. — It is stated in a letter of the high provost in 1768, 
" I ordered three men to be arrested yesterday on the requisition 
of M. C.,the assistant engineer, for not having performed their 
corvee. The affair made quite a stir among the women of the 
village, who cried, ' Nobody thinks of the poor people when the 
corvee is in question ; nobody cares how they live — do you see ?' " 

Note h^ page 161. 

OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES ORIGINALLY 
UNDERSTOOD THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION IN REFERENCE TO 
ROADS. 

The Count of K., in a letter to the intendant, complains of the 
want of zeal with which a road that is to pass near his place is 
prosecuted. He says it is the fault of the sub-delegate, who is 
not energetic enough, and does not force the peasantry to perform 
their corvees. 

02 



322 NOTES. 

Note i, page 163. 

There were two means of making roads. One was by corvees 
for all heavy work requiring mere manual labor ; the other — and 
the least valuable resource — ^was by imposing a general tax, whose 
proceeds were placed at the disposal of the Department of Bridges 
and Roads for the construction of scientific works. The privi- 
leged classes, that is to say, the principal landholders, who were 
of course the parties most interested in the roads, had nothing to 
do with corvees ; and as the general tax in favor of the Bridge 
and Road Department was always joined with the taille, and levied 
on those who paid it, they escaped that too. 

Note k, page 162. 

INSTANCE OF CORVEES FOR THE REMOVAL OF CONVICTS. 

A letter dated 1761, and addressed to the intendant by the com- 
missioner of the chain-service, states that the peasants were forced 
to transport the convicts in carts ; that they did so very reluctant- 
ly ; that they were often maltreated by the keepers of the con- 
victs, " who," says the letter, " are coarse, brutal men, while the 
peasants, who dislike this duty, are often insolent." 

Note 1, page 162. 
Target's sketches of the inconveniences and annoyances of 
corvees for the transportation of military baggage do not seem to 
me exaggerated now that I have read the documents bearing on 
the subject. He says, among other things, that the first incon- 
venience of the system is the extreme inequality with which this 
heavy burden is borne. It falls wholly on a small number of par- 
ishes, who are exposed to it by the misfortune of their position. 
The distance to be traversed is often five, six, and sometimes ten 
or fifteen leagues ; three days are consumed in the journey and 
the return. The sum allowed is not one fifth the value of the la- 
bor. These corvees are almost invariably required in summer 
during harvest-time. The oxen are almost always overdriven, 
and often come home sick, so that many farmer^ prefer paying 15 
or 20 livres to furnishing a cart and four oxen. The work is done 
in a most disorderly manner ; the peasantry are constantly in prey 
to the violence of the soldiery. Officers almost always exact more 
than the law allows : they sometimes compel the farmers to yoke 
saddle-horses to carts, whereby the animals are often lamed. Sol- 



NOTES. 323 

diers will insist on riding on carts that are already heavily laden ; 
in their impatience at the slow gait of the oxen, they will prick 
them with their swords, and if the farmer objects he is very rough- 
ly handled. 

Note m, page 162. 

EXAMPLE OF THE APPLICATION OF CORVEES TO EVERY THING. 

The marine intendant of Rochefort complains that the peasants 
are indisposed to perform their corvees by carting the timber that 
has been purchased by the naval purveyors in the various prov- 
inces. (This correspondence shows that the peasants were, in 
fact, still — 1775 — bound to corvees of this kind, for which the in- 
tendant fixed their remuneration.) The Minister of Marine sends 
the letter to the intendant of Tours, and says that the carts re- 
quired must be supplied. The intendant, M. Ducluzel, refuses to 
sanction corvees of this nature. The Minister of Marine writes 
him, a threatening letter, in which he notifies him that he will ap- 
prize the king of his resistance. The intendant replies directly 
(11th December, 1775), and states firmly, that during the whole 
ten years of his service as intendant at Tours, he has always re- 
fused to authorize these corvees, in consequence of the abuses they 
involve — abuses which the rates of wages do not compensate ; 
" for," says he, " the cattle are often lamed by drawing heavy logs 
over roads as bad as the weather in which this service is usually 
required of them." The secret of this intendant's firmness seems 
to have been a letter of M. Turgot's, filed with the correspond- 
ence, and dated 30th July, 1774, when Turgot entered the min- 
istry ; the letter states that Turgot never sanctioned these corvees 
at Limoges, and approves M. Ducluzel for refusing to sanction 
them at Tours. 

* Other portions of this correspondence show that purveyors of 
timber frequently exacted these corvees without being authorized 
to do so by a bargain with the state. They saved at least a third 
in freight. A sub-delegate gives the following instance of this 
profit : " Distance to drav;^ the logs from the place where they are 
cut to the river, over roads almost impassable, six leagues ; time 
consumed, two days. The corv'eables are paid at the rate of six 
liards a league per cubic foot ; they will thus receive 13/5, 10 s. 
for the journey, which will barely cover the expenses of the farm- 
er, his assistant, and the cattle yoked to his cart. He loses his 
own time, his trouble, and the labor of his cattle." 



324 NOTES. 

On 17th May, 1776, a positive order of the king to insist on 
this corvee is intimated to the intendant by the minister. M. Du- 
cluzel having died, his successor, M. L'Escalopier, hastens to 
obey, and to promulgate an ordinance stating that " the sub-dele- 
gate is empovi^ered to distribute the duty among the parishes ; and 
all persons liable to corvees in the said parishes are hereby order- 
ed to be present, at the hour directed by the syndics, at the place 
where the timber lies, and to cart it at the rate that shall be fixed 
by the sub-delegate." 

Note ii,pag^ 165. 

INSTANCE OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PEASANTRY WERE 
OFTEN TREATED. 

1768. The king remits 2000 francs of the taille to the parish 
of Chapelle Blanche, near Saumur. The curate claims a portion 
of this sum to build a steeple, and so rid himself of the noise of 
the bells which incommodes him in his parsonage. The inhabit- 
ants object and resist. The sub-delegate takes the side of the 
curate, and has three of the principal inhabitants arrested at night, 
and locked up in jail. 

Another example : Order of the king to imprison for two days 
a woman who has insulted two troopers of the horse-police. An- 
other to imprison for a fortnight a stocking-maker who has spoken 
ill of the horse-police. In this case the intendant replies that he 
has already had the fellow arrested, for which he is warmly praised 
by the minister. The police, it seems, had been insulted in con- 
sequence of the arrests of beggars, which had shocked people. 
When the intendant arrested the stocking-maker, he gave out 
that any person thereafter insulting the police would be still more 
severely punished. 

The correspondence between intendant and sub-delegates (1760 
-1770) shows that the former ordered the arrest of mischievous 
persons, not to bring them to trial, but to get them out of the way. 
The sub-delegate asks permission to keep two dangerous beg- 
gars he has arrested in perpetual confinement. A father protests 
against the imprisonment of his son, who has been arrested as a 
vagabond because he traveled without papers. A landowner of 
X. demands that a neighbor of his, who has lately come to settle 
in his parish, whom he aided, but who is conducting himself badly 
toward him and annoying him, be forthwith arrested. The intend- 
ant of- Paris begs his colleague of Rouen to oblige him thus far, as 
the petitioner is his friend. 



NOTES. 325 

To some one who desired to have some beggars set at liberty, 
the intendant replied " that poor-houses must not be considered 
prisons, but mere estabhshments intended for the detention of beg- 
gars and vagabonds by way oi administrative correction.'''^ This 
idea found its way into the Penal Code, So well preserved have 
been the notions of the old regime in this matter. 

Note o, page 172. 
It has been said that the character of the philosophy of the 
eighteenth century was a sort of adoration of human intellect, an 
unlimited confidence in its power to transform at will laws, insti- 
tutions, customs. To be accurate, it must be said that the human 
intellect which some of these philosophers adored was simply their 
own. They showed, in fact, an uncommon want of faith in the 
wisdom of the masses. I^iould mention several who despised the 
public almost as heartily as they despised the Deity. Toward the 
latter they evinced the pride of rivals — the former they treated 
with the pride of parvenus. They were as far from real and re- 
spectful submission to the will of the majority as from submission 
to the will of God. Nearly all subsequent revolutionaries have 
borne the same character. Very different from this is the respect 
shown by Englishmen and Americans for the sentiments of the 
majority of their fellow-citizens. Their intellect is proud and 
self-reliant, but never insolent; and it has led to liberty, while 
ours has done little but invent new forms of servitude. 

Note p, page 187. 

Frederick the Great says in his Memoirs, " The Fontenelles, the 
Voltaires, the Hobbeses, the Collinses, the Shaftesburys, the Bol- 
ingbrokes — all these great men dealt a deadly blow to religion. 
Men began to examine what they had stupidly adored. Intellect 
overthrew superstition. Fables that had long been believed fell 
into disgust. Deism made many converts. If Epicureanism was 
fatal to the idolatrous worship of the pagans. Deism was equally 
fatal to the Judaical visions of our ancestry. The liberty of 
thought which reigned in England M^as very favorable to the 
progress of philosophy." 

It may be here seen that Frederick the Great, at the time he 
wrote these lines, that is to say, in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, regarded England as the centre of irreligious doctrines. 
A still more striking fact is the total ignorance displayed by one 
of the most enlightened and experienced sovereigns of history, of 



326 NOTES. 

the political utility of religion. The faults of his masters had in- 
jured the natural qualities of his mind. 

Note q, page 211. 

A similar spirit of progress manifested itself at the same time 
in Germany, and there, as in France, was accompanied by a de- 
sire for a change of institutions. See the picture which a Ger- 
man historian draws of the state of his country at that time : 

" During the second half of the eighteenth century," says he, 
" the new spirit of the age has been introduced even into ecclesi- 
astical territory, on which reforms are commenced. Industry and 
tolerance penetrate into every corner of it ; it is reached by the 
enlightened absolutism which has already mastered the greater 
states. And it must be acknowledged that at no period during the 
century has the territory of the Church been ruled by sovereigns 
as worthy of esteem and respect as those who figured during the 
ten years which preceded the French Revolution." 

Note how this sketch resembles France, where progress and 
reform took a start at the same moment, and the men who were 
most worthy of governing appeared just when the Revolution was 
about to devour them all. 

Note, also, how visibly this part of Germany was drawn into 
the French movement of civilization and politics. 

Note X, page 212. 

HOW THE ORGANIZATION OP THE ENGLISH COURTS PROVES THAT 
INSTITUTIONS MAY HAVE MADE SECONDARY FAULTS WITHOUT 
FAILING IN THEIR ORIGINAL OBJECT. 

Nations have a faculty of prospering in spite of imperfections 
in the secondary parts of their institutions, so long as the general 
principles and spirit of these institutions are imbued with vitality. 
This phenomenon is well illustrated by the judicial organization 
of England during the last century, as we find it in Blackstone. 

Two anomalies at once meet the eye : 1st. The laws differ ; 
2d. They are carried into effect by different tribunals. 

1st. As to the laws : 

1. One set of laws is in force for England proper, another for 
Scotland, another for Ireland, another for certain European pos- 
sessions of Great Britain, such as the Isle of Man and the Chan- 
nel Islands, others for the colonies. 

2. In England alone four systems of law are in use : customary 



NOTES. 327 

law, statute law, Roman law, equity. Customary law, again, is 
subdivided into general customs which apply to the whole king- 
dom, customs which apply to certain seigniories or towns, and 
customs which apply to certain classes — such, for instance, as the 
custom of merchants. Some of these customs differ widely from 
the others, as, for instance, those which, in opposition to the gen- 
eral spirit of the English laws, direct the equal division of proper- 
ty among children (gavelkind), and those more singular customs 
still which award a right of primogeniture to the youngest child. 

2d. As to the courts : 

The law, says Blackstone, has established an infinite variety of 
courts. Some idea may be formed of their number from the fol- 
lowing very brief analysis : 

1. One meets first with the courts established out of England 
proper, such as the courts of Scotland and Ireland, which were 
not subordinate to the superior courts of England, though they 
were all, I fancy, subject to appeal fo the House of Lords. 

2. As to England proper, if my memory serves me, Blackstone 
counts, 1st. eleven kinds of courts existing at common law, of 
which four seem, indeed, to have fallen into disuse in his time. 
2d. Three kinds of courts exercising jurisdiction over certain 
cases throughout the country. 3d. Ten kinds of special courts : 
one of these is local courts, created by special acts of Parliament 
or existing by custom, either at London or in the towns or bor- 
oughs of the provinces. These are so numerous and so varied in 
their systems and rules that Blackstone abandons the attempt to 
describe them in detail. 

Thus, in England proper, if Blackstone is to be believed, there 
existed at the time he wrote, that is to say, during the second half 
of the eighteenth century, tw^enty-four kinds of courts, of vi^hich 
several were subdivided into various species, each having a par- 
ticular physiognomy. Setting aside those which seem to have 
fallen into disuse, there yet remain eighteen or twenty. 

Now the least examination of this judicial system brings to light 
ever so many imperfections. 

Notwithstanding the immense number of courts, there are none, 
it seems, close at hand, which can hear petty cases promptly and 
at small expense, and hence the administration of justice is em-' 
barrassing and costly. Several courts exercise jurisdiction over 
the same class of cases, whence troublesome doubts are thrown 
upon the validity of judgments. Nearly all the courts of appeal 
exercise original jurisdiction of one kind or another, either at com- 



328 NOTES. 

mon law or as equity courts. There are a variety of courts of 
appeal. The only point where all business centres is the House 
of Lords. Suits against the crown are not distinguished from 
other suits, which would seem a great deformity in the eyes of 
most of our lawyers. Finally, all these courts judge according to 
four different systems of laws, one of which consists wholly of 
precedents, and another — equity — has no settled basis, being de- 
signed, for the most part, to contradict the customs or statutes, and 
to correct the obsolete or over-harsh provisions of these by giving 
play to the discretion of the judge. 

Here are astounding defects. Compare this old-fashioned and 
monstrous machine with our modern judiciary system, and the 
contrast between the simplicity, the coherence, and the logical 
organization of the one will place in still bolder relief the compli- 
cated and incoherent plan of the other. Yet there does not exist 
a country in which, even in Blackstone's time, the great ends of 
justice were more fully attained than in England ; not one where 
every man, of whatever rank, and whether his suit was against a 
private individual or the sovereign, was more certain of being 
heard, and more assured of finding in the court ample guarantees 
for the defense of his fortune, his liberty, and his life. 

This does not indicate that the faults of the judiciary system of 
England served the ends of justice. It only shows that there may 
exist in every judiciary system secondary faults which are but a 
slight impediment to the proper transaction of business, while there 
are radical faults which, though they coexist with many secondary 
excellences, may not only interfere with, but absolutely defeat the 
ends of justice. The former are the easiest to detect ; they are 
instantly noticed by common minds. One can see them at a 
glance. The others are more difficult to discover, and lawyers 
are not always the people who perceive or point them out. 

Note, also, that the same qualities may be secondary or princi- 
pal, according to the times and the political organization of socie- 
ty. In aristocratic times, all inequalities, or other contrivances 
to diminish the privileges of certain individuals before the courts, 
to guarantee the protection of the weak against the strong, or to 
give predominance to the action of the government, which natural- 
ly views disputes between its subjects with impartiality, are lead- 
ing and important features. They lose their importance when so- 
ciety and political institutions point toward democracy. 

Studying the judiciary system of England by the light of this 
principle, it will be discovered that, while defects were allowed to 



NOTES. 329 

exist which rendered the administration of justice among our 
neighbors obscure, complicated, slow, costly, and inconvenient, in- 
finite pains had been taken to protect the weak against the strong, 
the subject against the monarch ; and the closer the details of the 
system are examined, the better will it be seen that every citizen 
had been amply provided with arms for his defense, and that mat- 
ters had been so arranged as to give to every one the greatest pos- 
sible number of guarantees against the partiality and venality of 
the courts, and, above all, against that form of venality which is 
both the commonest and the most dangerous in democratic times 
— subserviency to the supreme power. 

In all these points of view, the English system, notwithstanding 
its secondary faults, appears to me superior to our own. Ours has 
none of its vices, it is true, but it is not endowed with the same 
excellences. It is admirable in respect of the guarantees it offers 
to the citizen in suits against his neighbor, but it fails in the par- 
ticular that is most essential in a democratic society like ours, 
namely, the guarantees of the individual against the state. 

Note s, page 213. 

ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY THE DISTRICT OF PARIS. 

This district (generalite) enjoyed as large advantages in re- 
spect of government charities as of taxes. For example, the 
comptroller-general writes, on 22d May, 1787, to the intendant of 
the district of Paris, to say that the king has fixed the sum to be 
spent in charitable works, in the district of Paris, during the year, 
at 172,800 livres. Besides this, 100,000 livres are to be spent in 
cows to be given to farmers. This letter shows that this sum of 
172,800 livres was to be distributed by the intendant alone, in con- 
formity with the general rules laid down by the government, and 
subject to the general approval of the comptroller-general. 

Note t, page 214. 
The administration of the old regime comprised a multitude 
of different powers, which had been created — rather to help the 
treasury than the government — at various times, and often intrust- 
ed with the same sphere of action. Confusion and conflicts of 
authority could only be avoided on condition that each power 
should agree to do little or nothing. The moment they shook off 
inertia, they clashed and incommoded each other. Hence it hap- 
pened that complaints of the complications of the administrative 



330 NOTES. 

system and of the confusion of powers were much more pressing 
just before the Revolution than they had been thirty or forty years 
previous. Political institutions had grown better, not worse ; but 
political life was more active. 

Note u^ page 221. 

ARBITRARY INCREASE OF THE TAXES. 

What the king here says of the taille might have oeen said 
with equal truth of the twentieths, as is shown by the following 
correspondence. In 1772, Comptroller- general Terray had de- 
cided upon a considerable increase — 100,000 livres — in the twen- 
tieths in the district of Tours. M. Ducluzel, an able administra- 
tor and a good man, shows all the grief and annoyance he feels at 
the step in a confidential letter, in which he says, " It is the facil- 
ity with which the 250,000 livres were obtained by the last in- 
crease which has doubtless suggested the cruel step, and the letter 
of the month of June." 

In a very confidential letter from the director of taxes to the 
intendant, in reference to the same matter, he says, " If you still 
think the increase as aggravating and revolting, in view of the 
public distress, as you were good enough to say it was, it would 
be desirable that you should contrive to spare the province — 
which has no other defender or protector but yourself — the sup- 
plementary rolls, which, being retroactive in their effect, are al- 
ways odious." 

This correspondence likewise shows how sadly some standard 
rule of action was needed, and how arbitrarily matters were man- 
aged even with honest views. Intendant and minister both throw 
the surplus tax sometimes on agriculture rather than labor, some- 
times on one branch of agriculture (vines, for instance) rather 
than another, according to their own ideas as to which interest 
requires gentle treatment. 

Note V, page 224. 

STYLE IN WHICH TURCOT SPEAKS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE COUN- 
TRY PARTS IN THE PREAMBLE OF A ROYAL DECLARATION. 

" The country communities," says he, " in most parts of the 
kingdom, are composed of poor, ignorant, and brutal peasants, in- 
capable of self-government" 



NOTES. 331 

'Note w, page 229. 

HOW REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS WERE SPONTANEOUSLY GERMINATING 
IN men's MINDS UNDER THE OLD REGIME. 

In 1779 a lawyer begs the Council to pass an order establish- 
ing a maximum price for straw throughout the kingdom. 

Note X, page 230. 
The chief engineer wrote to the intendant, in 1781, on the sub- 
ject of a depoand for increased indemnity : " The applicant forgets 
that these indemnities are a special favor granted to the district 
of Tours, and that he is fortunate in obtaining partial repayment 
for his loss. If all the parties in interest were reimbursed on the 
scale he proposes, four millions would not suffice." 

Note y, page 234. 
This prosperity did not cause the Revolution ; but the spirit 
which was to cause it — that active, restless, intelligent, innovating, 
ambitious, democratic spirit, which imbued the new society, was 
giving life to every thing, and stirring up and developing every 
social element before it overthrew the whole. 

Note z, page 238. 

• CONFLICT OF THE SEVERAL ADMINISTRATIVE POWERS IN 1787. 

Example. — The intermediate commission of the provincial as- 
sembly of He de France claims the administration of the poor- 
house. The intendant insists on retaining control of it, as " it is 
not kept up out of the provincial funds." During the discussion, 
the commission applies to the intermediate commissions of other 
provinces for their opinion. That of Champagne, among others, 
replies that the same difficulty has been raised there, and that it 
has, in like manner, resisted the pretensions of the intendant. 

Note a,, page 242. 
I find in the reports of the first provincial assembly of He de 
France this assertion, made by the reporter of a committee : 
" Hitherto the functions of syndic have been more onerous than 
honorable, and persons who possessed both means and information 
suitable to their rank were thus deterred from accepting the office." 



K 



NOTE REFERRING TO VARIOUS PAS- 
\ SAGES IN THIS A^OLUME. 



FEUDAL RIGHTS EXISTING AT THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION, 
ACCORDING TO THE FEUDAL LAWYERS OF THE DAY. 

I DO not design to write a treatise on feudal rights, or to inquire 
into their origin. My object is merely to state which of them 
were still exercised in the eighteenth century. They have played 
so important a part in subsequent history, and filled so large a place 
in the imagination of those who have been freed from them, that I 
have thought it would be curious to ascertain what they really 
were at the time the Revolution destroyed them. With this view 
I have studied, first, the terriers, or registers of a large number of 
seigniories, choosing those which were most recent in date in pref- 
erence to the older ones. Finding.that this plan led to no satis- 
factory results, as the feudal rights, though regulated by the same 
general system of laws throughout Europe, varied infinitely in mat- 
ters of detail in the diiferent provinces and cantons, I resolved to 
pursue a different method, which was this. The feudal rights gave 
rise to countless lawsuits. These suits involved such questions 
as, How were these rights acquired ? how were they lost 1 in 
what did they consist ? which of them required to be based on a 
Toyal patent? which on a private contract? which on the local 
custom or long-established practice 1 how were they valued in 
case of sale ? what sum of money was each class supposed to rep- 
resent in proportion to the others % All these had been and still 
were litigated questions, and a school of lawyers had devoted their 
whole attention to their study. Of these, several wrote during the 
second half of the eighteenth century, some shortly before the Rev- 
olution. They were not jurisconsults, properly so called ; they 
were legal practitioners, whose sole aim was to furnish the profes- 
sion with rules of practice for a special and unattractive branch of 
the law. A careful study of these writers throws light on the in- 
tricate and confused details of the subject. . I subjoin the most 



334 NOTE. 

succinct analysis that I have been able to make of my work. It 
is mainly derived from the work of Edme de Freminville, who 
wrote about 1750, and that of Renauldon, written in 1765, and en- 
titled Traite Historique et Pratique des Droits Seigneuriaux. 

The cens (that is to say, the perpetual rent, in money or prod- 
uce, which the feudal laws impose on certain possessions) still con- 
tinues, in the eighteenth century, to modify the condition of many 
landholders. It is still indivisible ; that is to say, when the prop- 
erty which owes the cens has been divided, it may be exacted from 
any one of the owners. It is not subject to prescription. Ac- 
cording to some customs, the owner of a property burdened with 
cens can not sell it without exposing himself to the retrait censu- 
el ; that is to say, the creditor of the cens may take the property 
by paying the same price as the other purchaser. The custom of 
Paris ignores this right. 

Lods et ventes (mutation-fine). — The general rule, in those 
parts of France where customary law obtains, is that a mutation- 
fine is due on every sale of land subject to cens: it is a due on the 
sale which accrues to the seignior. These dues differ in different 
customs, but they are considerable in all. They exist also in those 
parts of the country where written law obtains ; there they amount 
to a sixth of the price, and are called lods ; but the seignior, in 
these districts, must prove h^s right. Throughout the country the 
cens creates a privilege for the seignior, in virtue of which he is 
preferred to all other creditors. 

Terr age or champart, agrier^ tasque. — These are dues in prod- 
uce which the debtor of the cens pays to the seignior ; the quan- 
tity varies according to custom and private agreement. These 
dues were often met with during the eighteenth century. I be- 
lieve that, even where customary law obtained, terrage required to 
be founded on a contract. It was either seigniorial, or connected 
with the land {fancier). It would be superfluous to explain here 
the signs by which these two kinds were distinguished ; suffice it 
to say that the latter, like ground-rents, was subject to a prescrip- 
tion of thirty years, while the former could never be lost by pre- 
scription. Land subject to terrage could not be hypothecated 
without the consent of the seignior. 

Bordelage. — This was a due which existed only in Nivernais 
and Bourbonnais, and consisted in an annual rent payable by all 
land subject to cens, in the shape of money, grain, and poultry. 
This due entailed very rigorous consequences : the non-payment 
of it for three years involved the conimise, or confiscation of the 



NOTE. 335 

property to the seignior. The rights of property of debtors of 
bordelage were, moreover, inchoate : in certain cases the seignior 
was entitled to their inheritance, to the exclusion of the rightful 
heirs. This was the most rigorous of all the dues of the feudal 
tenure, and its exercise had gradually been restricted to the rural 
districts ; for, as the author says, " peasants are mules ready to 
carry any load." 

Marciage was a peculiar right, only exercised in certain places. 
It consisted in a certain return which was paid by the possessors 
of property liable to cens on the natural death of the seignior. 

Enfeoffed tithes. — A large portion of the tithes were still en- 
feoffed during the eighteenth century. In general, they could only 
be claimed in virtue of a contract, and did not result from the mere 
fact of the land being seigniorial. 

Parcieres were dues levied on the harvest. They bore some 
resemblance to the champart and enfeoffed tithes, and were chiefly 
in use in Bourbonnais and Auvergne. 

Carpot, a due peculiar to Bourbonnais, was to vines what cham- 
part was to arable land — a right to a portion of the produce. It 
was one quarter of the vintage. 

Serfdom. — Those customs which retain traces of serfdom are 
called serf customs ; they are few in number. In the provinces 
where they obtain, no lands, or very few indeed, are wholly fi^e 
from traces of serfdom. (This was written in 1765.) Serfdom, 
or, as the author terms it, servitude, was either personal or real. 

Personal servitude was inherent in the person, and clung to him 
wherever he went. Wherever he removed his household, the 
seignior could pursue and seize him. The authors contain sever- 
al judgments of the courts based on this right. Among them, one, 
dated 17th June, 1760, rejects the claim of a seignior of Nivernais 
upon the succession of one Pierre Truchet. Truchet was the son 
of a serf under the custom of Nivernais, who had married a free 
woman of Paris, and died there. The court rejected the seignior's 
demand on the ground that Paris was a place of refuge from which 
serfs could not be recovered. The ground of this judgment shows 
that the seigniors were entitled to claim the property of their serfs 
when they died in the seigniory. 

Real servitude flowed from the possession of certain land, and 
could not be got rid of except by removing from the land and re- 
siding elsewhere. 

Corvees v/ere a right by which the seignior employed his vas- 
sals or their cattle for so many days for his benefit. Corvees at 



336 NOTE. 

will, that is to say, at the discretion of the seignior, are wholly 
abolished. They were long since reduced to so many days' work 
in the year. 

Corvees were either personal or real. Personal corvees were 
due by every laborer living on the seigniory, each working at his 
own trade. Real corvees were attached to the possession of cer- 
tain lands. Noblemen, ecclesiastics, clergymen, officers of justice, 
advocates, physicians, notaries, bankers, notables, were exempt 
from corvees. The author quotes a judgment of 13th August, 
1735, rendered in favor of a notary whose seignior wished to com- 
pel him to work for three days in the year in drawing up deeds for 
the seignior. Also another judgment of 1750, deciding that when 
the corvee is to be paid either in money or in labor, the choice 
rests with the debtor. Corvees must be substantiated by a writ- 
ten document. Seigniorial corvees had become very rare in the 
eighteenth century. 

Banality. — There are no banal rights in the provinces of Ar- 
tois, Flanders, and Hainault. The custom of Paris strictly for- 
bids the exercise of this right when it is not founded on a proper 
title. All who are domiciled in the seigniory are subject to it — 
men of rank and ecclesiastics even oftener than others. 

Independently of the banality of mills and ovens, there are many 
others : 

1st. Banality of Factory -mills ^ such as cloth-mills, cork-mills, 
hemp-mills. Several customs, among others those of Anjou, Maine, 
and Touraine, establish this banality. 

2d. Banality of Wtne-presses. — Very few customs speak of it. 
That of Lorraine establishes it, as also does that of Maine. 

3d. Banal Bull. — No custom alludes to it, but it is established 
by certain deeds. The same is true of banal butcheries. 

Generally speaking, this second class of banalities are rarer and 
less favorably viewed than the others. They can only be estab- 
lished in virtue of a clear provision of the custom, or, in default of 
this, by special agreement. 

Ban of the Vintage. — This was a police authority, which high 
justiciary seigniors exercised, without special title, throughout the 
kingdom during the eighteenth century. It was binding on every 
one. The custom of Burgundy gave to the seignior the right of 
gathering his crop of grapes one day before any other vine-grower. 

Right of Banvin. — This right, which, according to the authors, 
a host of seigniors exercised either in virtue of the custom or un- 
der private contracts, entitled them to sell the wine made on their 



NOTE. 337 

own estates a certain time — usually a month or forty days — before 
any other vine-grower could send his wine to market. Of the 
greater customs, those of Tours, Anjou, Maine, and Marche are 
the only ones which recognize and regulate this right. A judg- 
ment of the Court of Aides, bearing date 28th August, 1751, permits 
innkeepers to sell wine during the hanvin; but this was an excep- 
tional case ; they were only allowed to sell to strangers, and the 
wine sold must have come from the seignior's vineyard. The cus- 
toms which mention and regulate the right of hanvin usually re- 
quire that it be founded on written titles. 

Right of Blairie. — This is the right in virtue of which high jus- 
ticiary seigniors grant permission to the inhabitants of the seign- 
iory to pasture their cattle upon the lands within their jurisdiction, 
or waste lands. This right does not exist in those districts which 
are governed by written law ; but it is well known within the lim- 
its of the various customs. It is found under different names in 
Bourbonnais, Nivernais, Auvergne, and Burgundy. It rests on 
the assumption that the property of all the land was originally in 
the seignior, and that, after having distributed the best portions in 
feuds, copyholds {censives)^ and other concessions, for specific 
rents, he is still at liberty to grant the temporary use of those lands 
which are only fit for pasture. Blaine is established by several 
customs ; but no one can claim it but a high justiciary, and he must 
be able to show either a positive title to it, or old acknowledg- 
ments of its existence, fortified by long usage. 

Tolls. — Originally, say the authors, there existed a vast num- 
ber of seigniorial tolls on bridges, rivers, and roads. Louis XIV. 
abolished many of them. In 1724, a commission appointed to in- 
quire into the subject abolished twelve hundred of them ; and in 
1765 they were still being reduced. The first principle in this 
matter, says Renauldon, is that a toll, being a tax, must not only be 
established in virtue of a title, but that title must emanate from the 
crown. The toll is mentioned as being de par le roi. One of 
the conditions of tolls is that there must be attached to them a 
tariff of the rates which all merchandise must pay. This tariff 
must always be approved by an Order in Council. The title, says 
the author, must be confirmed by uninterrupted possession. Not- 
withstanding the precautions taken by the legislator, the value of 
some tolls has largely increased of late years. I know a toll, he 
adds, which w^as farmed out for 100 livres a century since, and 
which now brings in 1400 ; another, farmed out for 39,000 livres, 
now produces 90,000. The chief ordinances and edicts regulating 
P 



338 , NOTE. 

tolls are the 29th title of the ordinance of 1669, and the edicts of 
1683, 1693, 1724, and 1775. 

The authors whom I quote, though rather prepossessed, in gen- 
eral, in favor of feudal rights, acknowledge that great abuses are 
practiced in the collection of toUs, 

Ferries. — The right of ferry differs sensibly from the right of 
tolls. The latter is levied on merchandise only ; the former on 
persons, cattle, and vehicles. This right can not be exercised 
without the king's sanction, and the tariff of rates charged must be 
included in the Order in Council authorizing or establishing the ferry. 

The Right of Leyde (its name varies in different places) is an 
impost on merchandise sent to fairs or markets. The lawyers I 
am quoting say that many seigniors erroneously consider this a 
right appurtenant to high justice, and purely seigniorial ; whereas 
it is a tax which requires the sanction of the king. At any rate, 
the right can only be exercised by a high justiciary, who receives 
the fines levied in virtue thereof. And it appears that though the- 
oretically the right of leyde could not be exercised except by grant 
from the king, it was often in part exercised in virtue of a feudal 
title and long usage. 

It is certain that fairs could only be established by authorization 
of the king. 

Seigniors need no specific title or royal grant to regulate the 
weights and measures that are to be used in the seigniory. It suf- 
fices that the right is founded on the custom or long continued 
usage. The authors say that all the attempts that have been made 
by the kings to introduce a uniform standard of weights and meas- 
ures have been failures. No progress has been made in this mat- 
ter since the customs were drawn up. 

Roads. — Rights exercised by the seigniors over the roads. 

The highways, which are called the king's roads, belong whol- 
ly to the crown. Their establishment, their repairs, crimes com- 
mitted upon them, are not within the jurisdiction of the seign- 
iors or their judges ; but all private roads within the limits of 
a seigniory belong, without doubt, to the high justiciary. They 
have entire control over them, and all crimes committed thereon, 
except cases reserved to the king, are within the jurisdiction of 
the seigniorial judges. Formerly the seigniors were expected to 
keep in repair the high roads which traversed their seigniory, and 
rights of toll, boundary, and traverse were granted them by way 
of indemnity ; but the king has since taken the direction of all 
highways. 



NOTE. 339 

Rivers. — All rivers navigable for boats or rafts belong to the 
king, though they traverse seigniories, any title to the contrary 
notwithstanding (ordinance of 1669). Any rights which the seign- 
iors may exercise on these rivers — rights of fishing, establishing 
mills or bridges, or levying tolls — must have been acquired by 
grant from the king. Some seigniors claim civil or police juris- 
diction over these rivers ; but any such rights have been usurped 
or obtained by fraudulent grants. 

Small rivers undoubtedly belong to the seigniors whose domain 
they traverse. They have the same rights of property, jurisdic- 
tion, and police, as the king has over navigable rivers. All high 
justiciaries are universal seigniors of non-navigable rivers flow- 
ing through their territory. They need no better title to establish 
their right of property than the fact of their existence as high jus- 
ticiaries. Some customs, such as that of Berri, authorize individ- 
uals to erect mills on seigniorial rivers flowing through their prop- 
erty without permission from the seignior. The custom of Bre- 
tagne granted this right to noblemen. Generally, the law restricts 
to the high justiciary the right of granting permission to build 
mills within his jurisdiction. Even traverses can not be made 
upon a seigniorial river, for the protection of a farm, without per- 
mission from the seigniorial judges. 

Fountains, Pictnps, Retting-tanks, Ponds. — Rain falling upon 
the highway belongs exclusively to the high justiciary, who alone 
can make use of it. He can make a pond in any part of his juris- 
diction, even on the property of his tenants, by paying them for the 
land that is submerged. This rule is distinctly laid down by sev- 
eral customs ; among others, by those of Troyes and Nivernais. 
Private individuals can only have ponds on their own land ; and 
even for this, according to several customs, they must obtain leave 
from the seignior. The customs which require leave to be asked 
of the seignior forbid his selling permission. 

Fishery. — The right of fishery in rivers navigable for boats or 
rafts belongs to the king. He alone can grant it. His judges 
have sole cognizance of infractions of the fishery laws. Many 
seigniors, however, enjoy rights of fishery on these rivers, but they 
have either usurped them, or hold them by special grant from the 
king. As for non-navigable rivers, it is forbidden to fish therein, 
even with line, without the leave of the high justiciary in whose 
domain they flow. A judgment of 30th April, 1749, condemned a 
fisherman on this rule. Seigniors themselves must obey the gen- 
eral regulations regarding fisheries in fishing in these rivers. The 



340 NOTE. 

high justiciary may grant the right of fishing in his river, either 
as a feud, or for a yearly cens. 

Hunting. — The right of hunting can not be farmed out like the 
right of fishery. It is a personal right. It is held to be a royal 
right, which even men of rank can not exercise within their own 
jurisdiction, or on their own feud, without the king's permission. 
This doctrine is laid down in the 30th title of the ordinance of 
1669. The seigniorial judges are competent to sit in all cases rel- 
ative to hunting, except those which refer to the chase of red 
beasts (these are, I imagine, large game, such as stags and deer), 
which must be left to the royal courts. 

The right of hunting is, of all seigniorial rights, the one most 
carefully withheld from commoners ; even ihe franc-aleu roturier 
does not carry it. The king does not grant it in his pleasures. 
So strict is the principle, that a seignior can not grant leave to 
hunt. That is the law. But in practice seigniors constantly grant 
permission to hunt, not only to men of rank but to commoners. 
High justiciaries may hunt throughout the limits of their jurisdic- 
tion, but they must be alone. Within these limits they are enti- 
tled to make all regulations, prohibitions, and ordinances regulat- 
ing hunting. All feudal seigniors, even without justiciary rights, 
may hunt within their feud. Men of rank, who have neither feud 
nor justiciary rights, may hunt upon the lands adjoining their resi- 
dences. It has been held that a commoner who owns a park with- 
in the limits of a high justice must keep it open for the pleasures 
of the seignior ; but the judgment is old ; it dates from 1668. 

Warrens. — None can now be established without a title. Com- 
moners can establish warrens as well as noblemen, but none but 
men of rank can have forests. 

Pigeon-houses. — Certain customs restrict the right of having 
pigeon-houses to high justiciaries ; others grant it to all owners of 
feuds. In Dauphine, Brittany, and Normandy, no commoner can 
own a pigeon-house ; no one but a noble can keep pigeons. Most 
severe punishments, often corporal, were inflicted on those who 
killed pigeons. 

Such are, according to the authors quoted, the chief feudal rights 
exacted during the latter half of the eighteenth century. They 
add that " these rights are generally established. There are a 
host of others, less known and less extended, which exist only in 
certain customs or in certain seigniories in virtue of special titles." 
These rare or restricted rights which the authors enumerate num- 
ber ninety-nine. Most of them weigh upon agriculture, being 



NOTE. 341 

dues to the seignior on harvests, or on the sale or transport of 
produce. The authors say that many of these rights were dis- 
used in their time. I fancy, however, that several of them must 
have been enforced in some places as late as 1789. 

Having ascertained from the feudal lawyers of the eighteenth 
century what feudal rights were still enforced, I wished to ascer- 
tain what pecuniary value was set upon them by the men of that 
day. 

One of the authors I have quoted, Renauldon, furnishes the req- 
uisite information. He gives a set of rules for legal functionaries 
to follow in appraising in inventories the various feudal rights 
which existed in 1765, that is to say, twenty-four years before the 
Revolution. They are as follows : 

Rights of Jurisdiction. — He says, " Some of our customs value 
the right of jurisdiction, high, low, and middle {justice haute, 
basse, et moyenne^, at one tenth the revenue of the land. Seign- 
iorial jurisdictions were then highly important. Edme de Tremin- 
ville thinks that, in our day, jurisdiction should not be valued high- 
er than a twentieth of the income of the land. I think even this 
valuation too high." 

Honorary Rights. — Though these rights are not easily appre- 
ciated in money, our author, who is a practical man, and not easily 
imposed upon by appearances, advises the appraisers to value them 
at a very small sum. 

Seigniorial Corvees. — The author supplies rules for the valu- 
ation of corvees, which shows that they v/ere still occasionally en- 
forced. He values the day's work of an ox at 20 sous, and that 
of a man at 5 sous, besides his food. This is a fair indication of 
the wages paid at the time. 

Tolls. — With regard to the valuation of tolls, the author says : 
" No seigniorial rights should be valued at a lower rate than these 
tolls. They are very fluctuating ; and now that the king and the 
provinces have taken charge of the roads and bridges which are 
of most use to trade, many tolls have become useless, and they are 
being abolished daily." 

Right of Fishing and Hunting. — The right of fishery may be 
farmed out and regularly appraised. The right of hunting can not 
be farmed out, being a personal right. It is, therefore, an honor- 
ary, not a productive right, and can not be estimated in money. 

The author then proceeds to speak of the rights of banality, 
hanvin, leyde, hlairie, and the space he devotes to them shows 
that they were the most frequently exercised and the most import- 



342 NOTE. 

ant of the surviving feudal rights. He adds : " There are, besides, 
a number of other seigniorial rights, which are met with from time 
to time, but it would be tedious and even impossible to enumerate 
them here. In the examples we have given, appraisers will find 
rules to guide them in estimating the rights which we have not 
specially valued." 

Valuation of the Cens. — Most of the customs say that the cens 
must be valued at rather more than 3^ per cent. This high val- 
uation is due to the fact that the cens carries with it various casual 
benefits, such as mutation-fines. 

Enfeoffed Tithes, Terrage. — Enfeoffed tithes can not be val- 
ued at less than four per cent., as they involve no care, labor, or 
expense. When the terrage or champart carries with it muta- 
tion-fines to the seignior, this casualty must settle the value at 3^o 
per cent. , otherwise it must be valued like the tithes. 

Ground-rents, bearing no mutation-fines or right of redemption 
— that is to say, which are not seigniorial — must be valued at five 
per cent. 

ESTIMATE OP THE VARIOUS TENURES IN USE IN FRANCE BEFORE 
THE REVOLUTION. 

We only know in France, says the author, three kinds of real 
estate : 

1st. The franc-aleu, which is a freehold, exempt from all bur- 
dens, and subject to no seigniorial dues or rights, either beneficial 
or honorary. 

Francs-aleux are either noble or common (roturiers). Noble 
francs-aleucc carry with them a right of jurisdiction, or they have 
feuds or lands held by cens depending on them. They are divided 
according to feudal law. Covcmioii francs-aleux have no jurisdic- 
tion, or feuds, or lands held by cens. They are divided according 
to the ordinary rules {roturierement). The author considers that 
the holders oi francs-aleux are the only landholders who enjoy a 
complete right of property. 

The franc-aleu was valued higher than any other kind of tenure. 
The customs of Auvergne and Burgundy valued it 2^ per cent. 
The author thinks that 3^ per cent, would be a better valuation. 

It must be noticed that common francs-aleux, existing within 
the limits of a seigniorial jurisdiction, were dependent thereon. It 
was not a sign of subjection to the seignior, but an acknowledg- 
ment of the jurisdiction of courts which took the place of the royal 
tribunals. 



NOTE. 34H 

2d. Lands held by feudal tenure (a fief). 

3d. Lands paying cens, or, as they are here called in law, ro- 
tures. 

The valuation of lands held by feudal tenure was the lower in 
proportion to the feudal burdens laid upon them. In some cus- 
toms, and in that part of the country which was governed by writ- 
ten law, feuds paid nothing but " la bouche et les maiyis,''^ that is 
to say, feudal homage. In other customs, such as Burgundy, feuds 
not only owed homage, but were what was called de danger; that 
is to say, they were liable to commise, or feudal confiscation, when 
the owner took possession of them without having rendered " fealty 
and homage." Other customs, such as that of Paris, for instance, 
and many more, declared feuds subject not only to fealty and hom- 
age, but likewise to re-emption, quint and requint. Others again, 
such as that of Poitou and some others, burdened them with a fine 
on the oath of fealty {chamhellage), and service on horseback, etc. 

The first class of feuds must be valued higher than the others. 
The custom of Paris set them down at five per cent., which the 
author thinks very reasonable. 

To arrive at a valuation of lands held en roture and those sub- 
ject to cens, they must be divided into three classes : 

1st. Lands paying the mere cens. 

2d. Lands liable not only to cens, but to other burdens. 

3d. Lands mainmortable, subject to real taille, to hordelage. 

The first two classes of lands en roture were common enough 
in the eighteenth century. The third was rare. The first, says 
the author, must be valued higher than the second, the second than 
the third. Indeed, landholders of the third class can hardly be 
called owners, in the strict sense of the word, as they can not al- 
ienate their property without leave from the seignior. 

Terriers. — The feudal lawyers I have quoted furnish the fol- 
lowing rules for drawing up or renewing the seigniorial registers 
called terriers, which I have mentioned in the text. The terrier, 
as is known, was a great register, in which all the deeds establish- 
ing rights belonging to the seigniory, whether beneficial or honor- 
ary, real, personal, or mixed, were entered at length. It contain- 
ed all the declarations of the copyholders, the customs of the seign- 
iory, quit-rent leases, etc. In the custom of Paris, the authors say 
that seigniors may renew their terriers every thirty years at the 
expense of the copyholders. They add, however, that " one is 
fortunate to find a fresh one every century." The terrier could 
not be renewed (it was a troublesome formality for all those who 



^n^-'*^^-K; 



344 NOTE. 



held under the seignior) without obtaining an authorization which 
was called lettres a terrier. When the seigniory was within the 
jurisdiction of several Parliaments, this was obtained from the 
high chancellor; in other cases it was procured from the Par- 
liament. The court named the notary, before whom all vassals, 
noblemen and commoners, copyholders, emphyteutic lessees, and 
persons amenable to the seigniorial jurisdiction, were bound to ap- 
pear. A plan of the seigniory was required to be attached to the 
terrier. 

Besides the terriers, there were kept in each seigniory other 
registers called lieves, in which the seigniors or their stewards en- 
tered the sums they had received from their copyholders, with 
their names, and the dates of the payments. 



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